Picture supply: Getty Pictures
The Palantir Applied sciences (NYSE: PLTR) share value has been on hearth these days. From a low of $6 in early 2023, the expansion inventory has surged 440% to succeed in $34. It’s up 102% this 12 months alone and is close to a report excessive!
Palantir shareholders obtained another excuse to cheer just lately when it was introduced that the bogus intelligence (AI) and information analytics firm can be becoming a member of the distinguished S&P 500.
Clearly issues are going very properly. So, ought to I add this progress inventory to my portfolio? Let’s have a look.
An unconventional enterprise
Co-founder and CEO Alex Karp celebrated the agency’s S&P 500 inclusion in a YouTube video. Wearing operating gear and holding pink trekking poles in a forest, he stated some on Wall Road had seen Palantir as “a Frankenstein monster powered by a freak present chief“. However now, he added, “The rebels [had] gained“.
Named after the ‘seeing-stones’ in J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy sequence, Palantir employs an unorthodox administration type (Karp often leads meditation periods on the agency).
Clearly, this isn’t your common firm, and I like that.
However how does it generate income? Effectively, Palantir is a software program enterprise that helps organisations make knowledgeable choices by figuring out patterns in large quantities of information.
It operates two fundamental platforms: Foundry is for industrial enterprises, whereas Gotham is utilized by authorities and defence. Each analyse massive datasets to drive insights.
To present two examples, its software program was used to assist find Osama bin Laden and to trace US Covid circumstances.
Blue-chip prospects
The corporate works with the FBI, CIA, and the UK’s Ministry of Defence. Final 12 months, it gained a five-year contract to create a large information platform for the NHS.
It additionally has contracts with a number of blue-chip firms. On 9 September, for example, it signed a five-year cope with BP to assist the vitality large use AI to hurry up engineering choices.
Income progress has been strong for years, rising from $742m in 2019 to $2.2bn in 2023. Within the first six months of 2024, income elevated 24% 12 months on 12 months. Sturdy stuff.
However to hitch the S&P 500, an organization should meet a number of standards, together with having optimistic earnings in its most up-to-date quarter and over the previous 4 quarters mixed.
On this entrance, the corporate has made nice strides, turning worthwhile for the primary time final 12 months. And Wall Road now expects earnings to develop by a median of 30% yearly over the subsequent three to 5 years.
Ought to I purchase Palantir inventory?
Lots of latest investor pleasure has centred across the agency’s AI platform. This gives predictive fashions and automates complicated processes. It helped drive Palantir’s US industrial income 55% increased within the second quarter.
My fear right here is valuation. The inventory is buying and selling on a ahead price-to-sales (P/S) a number of of 27. That’s increased than Nvidia, which is at present rising sooner. The ahead price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is 82!
Clearly then, Palantir is priced for sky-high future progress. However quite a bit might go fallacious, from information privateness points to a slowdown in authorities contract wins (the US authorities accounts for over half the agency’s income).
That is undoubtedly a top-notch AI firm rising very healthily. However because it’s frothily valued, I’d fairly purchase different progress shares for my portfolio.
