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Palantir Technologies began trading on the NYSE in September.
Michael Nagle / Bloomberg
Palantir Technologies
the shares broke their six-day losing streak with a sudden comeback rally on Friday. The ever-volatile stock fell by more than 30% in six days, pulled down by disappointment with the company’s fourth-quarter financial results and the recent expiration of its post-IPO lockout period for investors.
The Heard on the Street column in the Wall Street Journal shows that on Friday the shares were embraced by the Reddit crowd WallStreetBets, the same group of individual investors who led
GameStop
parabolic shares (ticker: GME) higher last month.
On Tuesday, Palantir (PLTR) posted revenue of $ 322 million for the December quarter, up 40 percent from a year ago and long before the street consensus, to $ 300.7 million. The company reported a non-GAAP profit of six cents per share, ahead of the two-cent street consensus. Based on GAAP, the company lost eight cents per share. Palantir said revenue from government customers was $ 190 million, up 85 percent from a year earlier, while commercial revenue was $ 132 million, up just 4 percent.
The big data analytics company said it expects revenue growth of 45% for the first quarter. Palantir continues to expect revenue growth of more than 30% for the full year and has announced a new revenue target of over $ 4 billion by 2025.
The reaction of the street to the results was mixed. As reported on Wednesday, the stock was updated after gains
Goldman Sachs
to buy from Neutral, with a new target price of 34 USD, while William Blair went to Underperform from Market Perform, stating that the stock is not worth the risks enough. Citigroup analyst Tyler Radke reiterated his $ 15 sales rating and target, saying that “the stock is overvalued due to narrowing growth factors and increased quality issues with higher government exposure.”
Credit Suisse analyst Brad Zelnick repeated his Underperform rating this week, setting a target price of $ 20. He wrote in a research note that the fact that the company exceeded estimates for that quarter but did not raise the 2021 guidelines “leaves persistent questions about the potential magnitude of the slowdown in growth in the second half.” He adds that the lack of year-round margin guidance “calls into question the sustainability of the recent expansion of the margin as Covid-related [like many IT services companies, the company reduced travel spending during the pandemic] and the company invests aggressively in direct sales. ”
The trading activity of this stock increased this week before the expiration of the block on Thursday. Nearly 308 million shares traded on Thursday, the highest total ever recorded other than the day of the September 30 share listing, when 339 million shares changed. Friday will be the fourth consecutive day with the trading of at least 149 million shares.
Palantir shares opened trading at $ 10 last year. Shares in recent weeks have been extremely volatile, trading up to $ 45 on an intraday basis on January 27th. After closing at $ 38.17 on February 9, the stock came in six days ahead of today’s recovery rally. On Friday, Palantir shares rose about 13% to $ 28.37. At this level, the company has a valuation of about $ 53.5 billion, or about 36 times consensus estimates of street revenue for 2021.
Write to Eric J. Savitz at [email protected]