Palantir: An Investing Wildcard

Seeking Alpha2021-09-17

Summary Palantir offers a great service, but future profitability and growth remain a mystery. Furthermore, an investment in Palantir also means owning a variety of SPACs and even gold bars. With all...

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Comments

tigernaut
2021-09-17
tigernaut
?
HengOngHuat1
2021-09-17
HengOngHuat1
U win, I win, everybody win...[財迷] [開心] [得意]
IcySilver
2021-09-17
IcySilver
$Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$chart looking good, just breaking out from a range.
Cheryi
2021-09-17
Cheryi
?
Msx01
2021-09-17
Msx01
Pls like
ZEROHERO
2021-09-17
ZEROHERO
Price action is showing a reversal so do monitor for breakout in weekly candle soon

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(PLTR) is perhaps one of the hardest companies to value and believe me I have tried. There are just too many uncertain variables when it comes to this company. What does Palantir even do? How profitable can it be? How much dilution can we expect? And what new and “unexpected” investments will the company make going forward?\nAll of these things make for a very uncertain investment, which, in many ways, isn't justified at today’s price. At the very least, investors should apply an uncertainty discount to Palantir, since their business remains a mystery. Also, there are significant risks beyond dilution that could severely damage the company’s reputation.\nUltimately, I believe that while there are many compelling bearish points, a bull thesis can be built around the future growth of Foundry.\nWhat does Palantir do?\nI won’t spend too much time discussing something which I’ve already talked about extensively in this article. The key point I made there is that Palantir relies on having an experienced team of salesmen that can act as consultants to the businesses/institutions that use Gotham/Foundry. Far from saying that the software is useless by itself, the point I’m making is that it is so specialized that it has to be used by experts. It requires deep collaboration between experts from the company using the software and experts from Palantir.\nThe question then is just how much does Palantir rely on its employees and how much of the work is being done by its AI/software? In other words, what is the value split? And from a competitive standpoint, how easy would it be for former Palantir employees to create their own AI and compete with Palantir?\nTo properly answer this question, requires a very in-depth understanding of the technology behind Gotham/Foundry and also the specific business practices of the company. Most investors and I include myself here, can only make an educated guess, but ultimately this could go either way.\nFrom a bullish perspective, one could say that Palantir’s AI is actually learning all the time, and perhaps this makes it much harder to replace than a more traditional SaaS. On the other hand, another favourable point would be to say that, in the future, as data analytics becomes much more prevalent, companies will have more experienced employees who can therefore take some of the “burden” away from Palantir. Of course, there is a thin line between this and Palantir becoming completely replaceable.\nThe more bearish perspective would be to argue that Palantir’s software is easily replaceable and not that cutting edge, and that the reliance on highly paid and specialized engineers will render the company unprofitable for years, which brings me to my next point.\nAn uncertain future\nThe problem with Palantir is that it is near impossible to achieve a valuation based on cash flow, or even valuation multiples. Palantir’s business is unique and it remains a mystery what kind of profit margins the company will be able to achieve moving forward.\nIn the past, I have tried to value Palantir in such a way, by forecasting its profitability to approximate that of its peers in the coming decade. However, this yielded a target price of around $16/share, once dilution was taken into account.\nThe only way one could justify an investment in Palantir would be if share dilution is drastically reduced and the company continues to grow at a rate that justifies much higher valuation multiples than the industry.In this article,I calculated what this could look like, reaching a price target of around $116 by 2030, but this uses a P/E ratio of 66, which is double the industry average.\nThe point I am trying to make is that very different price targets can be obtained under reasonable assumptions. It just really depends on your interpretation of the business and its prospects.\nAnother issue with Palantir is the fact that it is so susceptible to news and marketing. Palantir works with sensitive data, and any hint at the fact that this data might not be safe, as the recent FBI glitch, might spook prospective clients and investors.\nUltimately, as many bulls argue, Palantir’s true addressable market can’t even be quantified yet. So how exactly can we quantify ROI?\nA “diversified” Balance Sheet\nTo make matters even more complex, Palantir has been making a series of investments that don’t seem to necessarily be based on logic. Last month it was revealed that Palantir invested around $50 million in gold bars. Why exactly? A proper explanation hasn’t been offered. Of course, this investment represents a little over 2% of Palantir’s available cash, but it still makes a clear statement: Palantir is not afraid to do unexpected things.\nMost notably though, Palantir has invested in numerous SPACS in the last year, which again just adds to the uncertainty of investing in Palantir. Some of these investments include Sarcos Robotics, Roivant Sciences and Celularity. Of course, there is a common theme underpinning these investments. All the above-mentioned companies use or have committed to using Palantir’s software in the future. More recently, Palantir has partnered with BlackSky, a geospatial intelligence company following a successful partnership with this company.\nThe question is, are these good investments that the company is making from a position of privilege since it knows these companies well? Or is Palantir simply investing to guarantee future demand? Whichever it is, one thing is clear, the fact that Palantir is so happy to spend the money it has raised at the expense of shareholders might concern some.\nPalantir’s road to success\nWith all of the uncertainty baked into the Palantir mix, there is only, in my opinion, one argument that can justify a position in Palantir, and that is growth. To justify its price, Palantir has to grow to become much more than it is today. Most significantly, Palantir’s Foundry, which serves commercial enterprises, has to become a staple in the business world.\nPalantir is trying to do just this, and it is getting started by launching Foundry for Builders, which aims to target smaller companies.\n\n Under Foundry for Builders, Palantir will sell Foundry to start-ups under a subscription model, first to companies connected to Palantir alumni, before expanding the initiative to other early stage companies.\n\nSource:Yahoo Finance\nThis is where Palantir investors should be looking to determine the future success of the company. If Palantir’s Foundry can prove itself useful to these early-stage companies, perhaps there is a chance that the company can grow into its valuation.\nTakeaway\nThe data analytics business will be one of the fastest-growing industries in the coming years. However, this space is incredibly competitive, and there’s a reasonable chance that successful companies today won’t be the winners of tomorrow. The data segment is comparable to the CRM and ERP business back in the 90s. In the coming years, a great majority of companies will be leveraging the power of data. But will they be using Palantir? The answer lies in which of these companies has the best “system” behind them. Palantir has shown a lot of promise, but at this price, I believe the uncertainty is too high to hold on to a significant position.","kind":null,"is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":true,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":1},"commentList":[{"id":884637095,"gmtCreate":1631886327717,"gmtModify":1676530661866,"author":{"id":"3567239827558758","authorId":"3567239827558758","name":"tigernaut","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/66e331c670eb88443b88c6bdb76224cf","vip":1,"hat":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b0a2963eb37c60c5d6d4a8dbcd266952","crmLevel":3,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"idStr":"3567239827558758","authorIdStr":"3567239827558758"},"htmlText":"?","listText":"?","text":"?","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/884637095","repostId":1183212407,"repostType":2,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":884159786,"gmtCreate":1631870458845,"gmtModify":1676530657524,"author":{"id":"3571023352127879","authorId":"3571023352127879","name":"HengOngHuat1","avatar":"https://community-static.tradeup.com/news/177af729da45ee828c95c80501c05a7e","vip":1,"hat":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0a8758340a08196056f8bc1e54805193","crmLevel":5,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"idStr":"3571023352127879","authorIdStr":"3571023352127879"},"htmlText":"U win, I win, everybody win...[財迷]&nbsp;[開心]&nbsp;[得意]&nbsp;","listText":"U win, I win, everybody win...[財迷]&nbsp;[開心]&nbsp;[得意]&nbsp;","text":"U win, I win, everybody win...[財迷] [開心] [得意]","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":3,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/884159786","repostId":1183212407,"repostType":2,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"CN"},{"id":884121597,"gmtCreate":1631869443019,"gmtModify":1676530657323,"author":{"id":"3574577404599862","authorId":"3574577404599862","name":"IcySilver","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/484d3b69652c2ca3d6cd65bc1007a60b","vip":2,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"3574577404599862","authorIdStr":"3574577404599862"},"htmlText":"<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/PLTR\">$Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$</a>chart looking good, just breaking out from a range.","listText":"<a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/PLTR\">$Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$</a>chart looking good, just breaking out from a range.","text":"$Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$chart looking good, just breaking out from a range.","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/884121597","repostId":1183212407,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":884164690,"gmtCreate":1631868780210,"gmtModify":1676530657212,"author":{"id":"3568940106394782","authorId":"3568940106394782","name":"Cheryi","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","vip":1,"crmLevel":5,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"3568940106394782","authorIdStr":"3568940106394782"},"htmlText":"?&nbsp;","listText":"?&nbsp;","text":"?","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/884164690","repostId":1183212407,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":884112639,"gmtCreate":1631866923321,"gmtModify":1676530656540,"author":{"id":"3569922361666902","authorId":"3569922361666902","name":"Msx01","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c57e95b88f5085ec8c97e84ebccac4b9","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"3569922361666902","authorIdStr":"3569922361666902"},"htmlText":"Pls like&nbsp;","listText":"Pls like&nbsp;","text":"Pls like","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/884112639","repostId":1183212407,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":884116075,"gmtCreate":1631866838397,"gmtModify":1676530656500,"author":{"id":"3566532164444643","authorId":"3566532164444643","name":"ZEROHERO","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/62813b6df1c4722e559d112fadd5486a","vip":2,"crmLevel":8,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"idStr":"3566532164444643","authorIdStr":"3566532164444643"},"htmlText":"Price action is showing a reversal so do monitor for breakout in weekly candle&nbsp;soon","listText":"Price action is showing a reversal so do monitor for breakout in weekly candle&nbsp;soon","text":"Price action is showing a reversal so do monitor for breakout in weekly candle soon","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":3,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/884116075","repostId":1183212407,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"}],"isCommentEnd":false,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":83,"commentSize":11,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; 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