Palantir Faces An Uphill Battle Of Its Own Making

seekingalpha2021-04-29

Summary PLTR shares are rangebound between support and resistance. The company's products are great, but the valuation is extremely high. And with massive dilution on the horizon, the uphill battle ...

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Comments

HLPA
2021-04-30
HLPA
Investors sentiments will outweigh all. Just like GME and AMC, both are still climbing due to investors' love for them
Sagi08
2021-04-30
Sagi08
[Smile] @IZLINreference for uipath?
- Sagi08:
  @ @Zenekz @simplydkam @Meow17
Styan21
2021-04-29
Styan21
It is good to hold in long term.
tionglim
2021-04-29
tionglim
Like & Comment thanks !
ohty0308
2021-04-29
ohty0308
Another hodler here
angskk
2021-04-29
angskk
HODL

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}\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nPalantir Faces An Uphill Battle Of Its Own Making\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-04-29 13:17 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4421908-palantir-faces-uphill-battle-of-own-making><strong>seekingalpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>Summary\n\nPLTR shares are rangebound between support and resistance.\nThe company's products are great, but the valuation is extremely high.\nAnd with massive dilution on the horizon, the uphill battle ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4421908-palantir-faces-uphill-battle-of-own-making\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"PLTR","symbol_name":"Palantir Technologies Inc.","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4421908-palantir-faces-uphill-battle-of-own-making","article_id":"1172604616","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":[],"rights":null,"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1172604616","pubTimestamp":1619673446,"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"seekingalpha","name":"Seeking Alpha"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"Summary\n\nPLTR shares are rangebound between support and resistance.\nThe company's products are great","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"seekingalpha.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"PLTR":"Palantir Technologies Inc."},"translate_title":"Palantir面临着一场由它自己制造的艰苦战斗","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"PLTR":0.9},"content_text":"Summary\n\nPLTR shares are rangebound between support and resistance.\nThe company's products are great, but the valuation is extremely high.\nAnd with massive dilution on the horizon, the uphill battle will only worsen.\n\nPhoto by Michael Vi/iStock Editorial via Getty Images\nGrowth stocks have been out of favor with investors for months at this point, with various growth names suffering in differing amounts since they lost their shine. Software stocks were a big winner last year, but have been treading water with the broader market for some time, with winners and losers becoming much clearer as the group has ceded its leadership position in the market.\nOne of those names is Palantir Technologies (PLTR), a stock that went public last year for less than half where it trades today.\nSource: StockCharts\nPalantir had ahugerun about a month after going public, trading about 3X what it went public for just a couple of months earlier. Eventually, Palantir hit $44 (briefly) before selling back down to the low-$20s. The stock has been a bit rangebound since then, but I don’t see a lot of reason to be bullish on the chart.\nFirst, the 50-day moving average has been a brick wall since the stock fell below it a couple of months ago, and I’ve circled three times when Palantir tried to challenge the 50-DMA, only to be rejected. Until that line is crested and begins to move higher, there is no chance of an uptrend.\nThe good news is that there appears to be decent support at $20/$21, which I’ve annotated as well. The bad news is that there appears to be a showdown coming between that support level and the declining 50-DMA; something will have to give after they converge.\nI always take a look at the accumulation/distribution line, and it is very uninspiring in Palantir’s case, declining sharply earlier this year and failing to reclaim any lost ground. The PPO is rising, but ever so slightly, and still in negative territory. If you squint, you may be able to pull something bullish from that, but to me, the PPO is neutral at best.\nThe bottom line on the chart is that there is heavy resistance with the 50-DMA and not a lot to be excited about if you’re bullish, at least not yet. After the 50-DMA and price support collide, maybe Palantir trades higher and starts a new uptrend. But for me, as we’ll see below, I still think Palantir is way overvalued, so I see the odds of a break lower as higher than a bullish break.\nGreat business? Check.\nPalantir was, for many years, a secretive software firm with only a couple thousand employees that seemed to know something others didn’t. Since Palantir was private, investors would hear only whispers of its greatness and how it was solving the world’s data challenges one customer at a time. This secretive nature of its business was only enhanced by the knowledge that most of its revenue was from government clients, supporting the US Army and others to fight the bad guys in more effective ways.\nNow that Palantir is public, we wonder no more about what it is doing, and what it is doing is terrific.\nSource: Investor presentation\nPalantir’s customer book soared in 2020, posting 21 deals of at least $5 million, and growing its existing customers to the point where its top line gained 47% during a global pandemic. The mega-trend of harnessing the power of data has been around for a long time and is only accelerating, so the efficacy of Palantir’s business model is not in question. If anything, it will only become more relevant over time, and we should see more eye-popping revenue growth in the years to come. More on that in a bit.\nSo what makes Palantir so good? Every company wants to use data to their advantage, gaining insights on customer behaviors to drive profitable revenue, optimizing the supply chain, optimizing their labor model, etc. There are many companies that do this, but Palantir somehow always seems to be in front of the rest.\nThe company’s Gotham and Foundry\nIn addition, it provides customers with a virtually instantaneous, completely transparent upgrade cycle with its Apollo platform. Here’s how it works.\nSource: Company website\nApollo allows for continuous software upgrades that power its SaaS platforms, Foundry and Gotham, in the cloud. Apollo automates the updating of customer solutions with the latest features, which is value-add for the customer given there is no disruption to operations to make updates. This focus on the customer value proposition is part of the reason why Palantir has been so successful.\nGrowth? Check.\nPalantir’s business is terrific and its products really are outstanding; it isn’t just hype. And as we’ll see now, the company has big plans.\nSource: Investor presentation\nPalantir has been trying to diversify away from government clients, but the segment still makes up well over half of the total revenue. As I mentioned, government clients tend to offer stickier revenue to vendors given contracts are typically longer, and as Palantir has proven its worth, it has seen usage soar. Indeed, government customers produced 77% higher revenue last year, which is staggering. Palantir has positioned itself as the leader in helping the Department of Defense and others, and that position is paying off. It will be very difficult for anyone to supplant Palantir in this space.\nOne of the knocks against Palantir – rightfully so – is that its revenue is extremely concentrated.\nSource: Investor presentation\nRevenue from the company’s top 20 customers soared 34% last year, and while it fell in terms of concentration, it was still 61% of the total. That is a tremendous amount of customer concentration risk for Palantir, and while it is working to get that number lower, I can’t think of another business of meaningful size that has this kind of concentration risk.\nThe good news is that margins are outstanding, as you’d expect for a software business.\nSource: Investor presentation\nNot only are margins outstanding, they’re getting better. Gross margin is now in excess of 80% of revenue, and that number should only rise as more and more customers are signed. Since software has very little in the way of variable costs, delivering more of it costs Palantir very little, meaning incremental revenue is increasingly profitable. That’s why gross margin is soaring, and why it should continue to rise. Keep in mind that at 81% for the year, there isn’t a huge amount of upside left, but I expect Palantir’s margins to continue rising in the years to come.\nValuation? Uh oh.\nHopefully, I’ve made it clear I really do think Palantir’s business is exceptional, marking itself apart from a very crowded cloud-based data analysis sector. However, for all that goodness, I simply cannot make the valuation work for the bulls.\nSource: Seeking Alpha\nThe stock is about half what it was at its peak a few months ago, and still, it trades for 30X this year’s revenue. Of course, that number declines pretty quickly into next year and 2023, but we’re still talking about 23X and 18X, respectively. That kind of multiple is difficult to swallow given that valuations in the sector have come down, and in nowhere near the stratosphere of Palantir’s price-to-sales multiples.\nOne important point that I don’t want to lose sight of is the fact that we have to use price-to-sales at all; Palantir doesn’t produce meaningful earnings despite its massive revenue base that is growing quickly. As I mentioned, this should get better over time as it produces operating leverage with incremental revenue, but bulls shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that this company has ~$1.5 billion in revenue, 80%+ gross margins, and still cannot turn more than a token profit.\nUnfortunately for the bulls, the pain doesn’t end there.\nSource: Seeking Alpha\nRevisions for Palantir have been weak, to say the least, as you can see above. The nearest years have seen essentially no revisions, as the lines are very flat. The out years, however, in green, purple, and yellow, are moving decidedly lower. I won’t read the chart to you but basically, it appears the overly bullish revisions that were made during 2020 have been largely reversed, and have shown no signs of stabilizing. When the stock is valued based upon its revenue base, this is a big problem.\nFinally, the last nail in the coffin for me is Palantir’s love of stock-based compensation. Below, we have the company’s share count for the past several quarters, and we must understand the huge jump in the September quarter was from the company going public.\nSource: Seeking Alpha\nHowever, even so, we see meaningful moves higher in the share count prior to going public, as well as another ~80M shares issued in the December quarter. But that’s not the only dilution Palantir is likely to see in the years to come.\nSource: 10-K (page 143)\nPalantir had535Moptions outstanding at the end of 2020, with 304M of them vested and exercisable as of December 31st. The 304M that are vested represents 17% of the current float, while the full lot of 535M is about 29%. And keep in mind Palantir didn’t get here with one giant options distribution to employees; this is just how it does business. So unless something radically changes with the way it pays employees, Palantir is subject not only to its current liability of at least 304M options, but also any additional dilution that will take place to pay employees.\nThe bottom line is that Palantir is a great company, but one that is priced far too high. The company’s lack of meaningful profits is also going to be exacerbated by the fact that it distributes absolutely enormous numbers of options to employees as compensation, so as dilution takes place, there will be willing sellers after the options are exercised, as well as the fact that a lot more shares will be outstanding. As Palantir tries to grow earnings-per-share, having more and more shares outstanding to spread its very thin earnings over is counterproductive, to say the least. In short, Palantir is hurting its own chances at boosting EPS over time through massive dilution.\nGiven all of this, I’m not necessarily bearish on Palantir, but I see no reason to buy this stock. If it breaks support at $20/$21 and nosedives into the mid-teens or less, I’ll take another look. But for now, the stock is in a sort of no man’s land between support and resistance, and from a fundamental perspective, the stock is not only very expensive but faces an uphill battle thanks to the company’s compensation practices. I’ll pass on this one.","kind":null,"is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":null,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":1},"commentList":[{"id":103608070,"gmtCreate":1619772862490,"gmtModify":1704272152358,"author":{"id":"3569274903458035","authorId":"3569274903458035","name":"HLPA","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/07e7b987a9127c5a47dbc3ae02db548b","vip":1,"hat":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/646756f1284a5a6480ed02cc4fa7d1d2","crmLevel":8,"crmLevelSwitch":1},"htmlText":"Investors sentiments will outweigh all. Just like GME and AMC, both are still climbing due to investors' love for them","listText":"Investors sentiments will outweigh all. Just like GME and AMC, both are still climbing due to investors' love for them","text":"Investors sentiments will outweigh all. Just like GME and AMC, both are still climbing due to investors' love for them","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/103608070","repostId":1172604616,"repostType":2,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":103977845,"gmtCreate":1619745729487,"gmtModify":1704271731937,"author":{"id":"3582026494482473","authorId":"3582026494482473","name":"Sagi08","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/04a6ca80d31900bae8ec95b23446e79d","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"[Smile]&nbsp;<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/U/3581848609787274\">@IZLIN</a>reference for uipath?","listText":"[Smile]&nbsp;<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/U/3581848609787274\">@IZLIN</a>reference for uipath?","text":"[Smile] @IZLINreference for uipath?","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":3,"commentSize":1,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/103977845","repostId":1172604616,"repostType":2,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"comments":[{"id":4177898,"gmtCreate":1619745861271,"gmtModify":1680786293262,"authorId":3582026494482473,"author":{"id":3582026494482473,"authorId":3582026494482473,"name":"Sagi08","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/04a6ca80d31900bae8ec95b23446e79d","vip":1,"currentWearingBadge":{"badgeId":"a83d7582f45846ffbccbce770ce65d84-1","templateUuid":"a83d7582f45846ffbccbce770ce65d84","name":"Real Trader","description":"Completed a transaction","bigImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/2e08a1cc2087a1de93402c2c290fa65b","smallImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4504a6397ce1137932d56e5f4ce27166","grayImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4b22c79415b4cd6e3d8ebc4a0fa32604","redirectLinkEnabled":0,"hasAllocated":1,"isWearing":1,"stampPosition":0,"hasStamp":0,"allocationCount":1,"allocatedDate":"2021.12.21","individualDisplayEnabled":0,"individualDisplaySort":0,"categoryType":1100},"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[]},"repliedAuthorId":0,"objectId":103977845,"type":1,"supId":0,"prevId":0,"content":"@<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/U/3582502498874268\"> @Zenekz</a> <a href=\"https://laohu8.com/U/3582502706085184\"> @simplydkam</a> <a href=\"https://laohu8.com/U/3581561113691319\"> @Meow17</a> ","text":"@<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/U/3582502498874268\"> @Zenekz</a> <a href=\"https://laohu8.com/U/3582502706085184\"> @simplydkam</a> <a href=\"https://laohu8.com/U/3581561113691319\"> @Meow17</a> ","html":"@<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/U/3582502498874268\"> @Zenekz</a> <a href=\"https://laohu8.com/U/3582502706085184\"> @simplydkam</a> <a href=\"https://laohu8.com/U/3581561113691319\"> @Meow17</a> "}],"langContent":"EN"},{"id":109413349,"gmtCreate":1619709098281,"gmtModify":1704271224846,"author":{"id":"3566561010238981","authorId":"3566561010238981","name":"Styan21","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/1facda3423e3e6887b830972eb943930","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"It is good to hold in long term.&nbsp;","listText":"It is good to hold in long term.&nbsp;","text":"It is good to hold in long term.","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/109413349","repostId":1172604616,"repostType":2,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":109834307,"gmtCreate":1619682427809,"gmtModify":1704727911881,"author":{"id":"3562361215333748","authorId":"3562361215333748","name":"tionglim","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/d488f4ff48c280ec624f30e1178e347d","vip":1,"hat":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0a8758340a08196056f8bc1e54805193","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":1},"htmlText":"Like &amp; Comment thanks !","listText":"Like &amp; Comment thanks !","text":"Like & Comment thanks !","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/109834307","repostId":1172604616,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":109172316,"gmtCreate":1619678131735,"gmtModify":1704727867601,"author":{"id":"3578220246250610","authorId":"3578220246250610","name":"ohty0308","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/1488b6459dba7c0c98675f806ac94140","vip":1,"crmLevel":4,"crmLevelSwitch":1},"htmlText":"Another hodler here","listText":"Another hodler here","text":"Another hodler here","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/109172316","repostId":1172604616,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":109152271,"gmtCreate":1619676134293,"gmtModify":1704727840211,"author":{"id":"3575447019432232","authorId":"3575447019432232","name":"angskk","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/14993a1ab2e959534763e33dc2415981","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"HODL","listText":"HODL","text":"HODL","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/109152271","repostId":1172604616,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"}],"isCommentEnd":false,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":21,"commentSize":7,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":2,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; 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