Shares of Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR | PLTR Price Prediction) fell 3.56% yesterday and then another 1.1% in after horus trading. While Palantir is a volatile stock, that’s a nearly 5% move in 24h for a stock that was also seeing an extreme rebound in investor sentiment following an meme worthy interview CEO Alex Karp gave
The delta between sentiment and sell off just points to a recurring pattern in meme stocks, where viral enthusiasm doesn’t always translate to institutional buying pressure.
A Silly Sword Interview Is Met With Cheers
A meme worthy interview wtih CEO Alex Karp wielding a sword during captured the attention of retail investors already primed by Palantir’s blowout Q3 earnings.
In that Q3 release the company reported an impressive $1.2B in revenue. That not only beat estimates, it delivered on an enviable ‘Rule of 40’ score of 114%. More on that in a moment.
U.S. commercial revenue surged 121% year-over-year, and total contract value jumped 151% to $2.76B, signaling accelerating enterprise adoption.
Reddit sentiment on Palantir stock popped close to 35%, going from from neutral (48/100) to bullish (62/100) by midday. The cause? Primarily by a single high-engagement thread in r/stocks. In that discussion titled Why are they really buying?, one user captured the growing narrative:
“People who are buying are not stupid,” one user quipped.
Another thread in the same subreddit, titled Identifying Good Management as part of Analysis explicitly cited Karp as a benchmark for good management execution: “Read their strategy 4+ years ago and see if they made true on their promises today (e.g. Alex Karp and rule of 40).” He brings up a good point, and went on to reinforce the belief that Palantir’s leadership delivers on commitments. While all of that is good and well, it is still backward looking. Today the company trades at an eye watering 434x trailing P/E multiple, so perfection is needed to go further from here.
What’s Next For 2024 & 2025’s AI’s Champion Stock?
Meme cycles are fickle, but Palantir has undoubtably ridden a 2 year wave of retail enthusiasm and core business execution that few though possible. Ongoing performance around the company winning major US defense contracts, and perhaps a few more meme worthy clips from CEO Karp could keep the party going, much to the chagrin of Michael Burry, who recently revealed a $1b+ short position on the company.
Top Gaining Stocks
Top Losing Stocks