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Palantir dropped a blockbuster earnings report for the second quarter on Monday.
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The AI-powered software firm reported $1 billion in revenue for the first time.
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The stock surged as much as 10%, extending its run as the best-performing stock in the S&P 500 this year.
Palantir stock popped to fresh records on Tuesday after a blockbuster quarterly report revealed revenue topped $1 billion for the first time.
Here are the latest numbers that illustrate its monster year so far in 2025.
Year-to-date gain
Palantir is on top for the second year in a row.
After ending 2024 with a gain of 340%, the stock is up 130% in 2025 and is the best-performing name in the S&P 500 year-to-date by a fairly wide margin. The second-best performer, GE Vernova, is up about 100%.
Gains for Palantir earlier in the year were driven by a combo of lucrative deals with the government, endless enthusiasm for the AI trade, and a retail-trader base that’s been exuberant about the stock recently.
Palantir was the most-traded stock among investors on Fidelity on Monday, with volume up about 8%. Mentions of the company also surged on investing forums across Reddit, up 375% in the last 24 hours, according to sentiment tracker Ape Wisdom.
CEO Alex Karp has leaned into the enthusiasm from retail, welcoming calls from individual traders and often shouting them out for their support during earnings calls.
Revenue growth
Palantir’s Q2 earnings report revealed revenue topped $1 billion for the first time ever, marking a 48% year-over-year increase. US revenue surged 60% year-over-year and 17% quarter-over-quarter, reaching $733 million.
The company also set records for total contract value and US commercial contract value, which grew 140% and 222% year-over-year respectively.
“We are guiding to the highest sequential quarterly revenue growth in our company’s history, representing 50% year-over-year growth,” Karp said on the call.
In his letter to Palantir shareholders, Karp said that the company’s critics have been “defanged and bent into a kind of submission.”
Eye-popping valuation
The jump on Tuesday also stretches what analysts have said is an already extreme valuation.
At Tuesday’s price, Palantir stock trades at a trailing 12-month price-to-earnings ratio of nearly 800x, which Wall Street pros say will need to be justified with continued stellar growth in the coming quarters. Analysts warn that even a slight miss threatens to spark a sharp correction in the stock.
Its colossal valuation was the one big reason analysts held back on more bullish assessments of the stock, even as Wall Street was optimistic heading into the latest earnings report.
Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Mizuho are among the Wall Street banks that maintained a “neutral” rating on Palantir, while analysts at Citi, rated the stock as “Neutral/High Risk.”
“We are equally stunned by the multiple that PLTR has attained, which places its valuation dramatically above anything else in software,” Mizuho analysts said ahead of the report, adding they “continue to worry” that the stock could see a reversion sometime in the next several quarters.
“We continue to be very impressed by the fundamental story (we have been since our launch) but valuation remains our key hurdle, we remain Neutral rated,” UBS analysts wrote.
Billionaire bonanza
The dizzying climb in the stock price has boosted the fortunes of founders and insiders to new heights.
Alex Karp’s net worth has about doubled this year to $14.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The rally has also pushed CTO Shyam Sankar into the billionaire’s club for the first time.
Other insiders whose wealth has soared into the billions include President Stephen Cohen and co-founder Joe Lonsdale, who left Palantir in 2009. Peter Thiel, who co-founded the company, has seen his net worth surge to 24 billion this year, partly due to Palantir’s huge gain.
Read the original article on Business Insider