Summary
- Palantir is down 80% from its all-time high.
- Investors getting back to even face a tough road ahead.
- Volatility can cloud judgment and amplifies emotions.
- PLTR could be a Buy for certain investors; I'm cautiously optimistic.
Down 80%
Palantir (NYSE:PLTR) is down 80% from its all-time high. Actually, to be very precise, PLTR is down 81%, but what's 1% between friends?
So, what was happening back then?
- Palantir Technologiesbags new $22.5M contract in Japan
- Fujitsu signs $8M contract as Palantir Foundry customer
- Palantir selected to work on Army’s Ground Station modernization
- Palantir announces multi-million dollar deal with PG&E
- Palantir shares surge 25% ahead of Demo Day
It certainly wasn't all good news:
- Palantir cut to sell at Citi ahead of lockup, decelerating growth
Yet, we were in the days of Wall Street Bets going wild. And, the key back in early 2021 was that PLTR was riding high on sentiment, and retail. At that point in time, few people were thinking about "macro" at all:
Retail trading is definitely changing the way markets function, but what really seems to matter is that we now have a stock picker's market for the first time since the dot-com bubble. That means stocks may be less sensitive to the broader economy than they used to be, while the professionals need to pay attention to a new generation of investors that entered the scene after the rise of commission-free trading. Instead of following many of the upgrades and downgrades on Wall Street, they're doing their own research on platforms like Seeking Alpha, and signaling a new era to the DIY investing atmosphere.
Of course, we know from even the most basic charts that retail went sour and macro has taken over for now: interest rates, inflation, war, just to name a few factors that have taken hold. I was rather clear about this in May 2022:
The biggest macro story last year into this year was that growth was shifting to value. Of course, PLTR is clearly in the growth category. However, at this time, we have the perfect storm of inflation, supply chain issues, growth out of favor, and way more. Just about everything is against PLTR in the grand view.
Are We Really Down 80%
This is where things get tricky. I'm down about 35% because my cost basis is over $11. It's not too hard to mathematically figure out how far an investor is down. It's also not mathematically hard to figure out how much is required to get back to even. The problem is that it's psychologically difficult to put losses and gains together.Here's what I mean:
One of the more compelling aspects of investing is the math of gains and losses. Very simply, a 50% gain does not allow a portfolio to recover from a 50% loss. In fact, a 100% gain is required to restore a 50% loss.
Here's a compelling picture to better understand how this works:
Importantly, this also applies to any individual stock. The math doesn't change because we're looking at the S&P 500 (SPY) or PLTR.
Making this personal, I'm down 35% so PLTR needs to gain about 54% from here for me to get back to even on my investment. As I'm writing this up, PLTR is trading at $7.40 so I can multiply by 1.54 (i.e., 54%) to see that is how I get back to my cost basis of $11.40.
Again, I must stress that the math isn't too difficult. The decline is easy to calculate. And, the gain is easy to calculate. But, what happens is that we anchor to our starting price, so the recovery feels extra painful. Pain and pleasure are not symmetric.
If there is a tiger chasing after you versus a suitcase full of money in front of you, which would motivate the average person to act quickly? Avoiding a certain amount of immediate pain wins over gaining immediate pleasure every time. Studies have demonstrated time and time again that people will do much more to avoid short-term pain than they will to gain short-term pleasure.
This is why having a long-term view of an investment is so critical. The more you check your investments, like PLTR, the more likely you are to feel bad. This is true even when the stock is mostly going up, because every tick down is 2-3x more painful than one tick up. Furthermore, this also partially explains why it's critical to have a portfolio that makes you comfortable. In other words, diversification helps to moderate feelings because quite often at least some investments are going up.
Putting The "Loss" in Perspective
My little psychology lesson here is of paramount importance. If you believe that PLTR is a meme stock, then you will be thinking of PLTR as a short-term play. It's quite likely that selling will happen on big dips and it will be painful.
On the other hand, if you believe Alex Karp, in that PLTR is a long-term play, then your patience will grow dramatically.Hat Tip to Samuel Smith for clarifying this, in regards to Karp speaking at the World Economic Forum:
Given the required scale, scope, and strength of enterprise software products, PLTR typically takes up to 5 years to fully build them. As a result, the true value of PLTR at any point in time is often never fully appreciated until ~5 years down the road. The bright side of this, however, is that due to the length of time required for fully building and implementing a new enterprise software product, they often have even longer durations in the marketplace.
I don't think I've ever really made the case that PLTR was a short play. My minimum is nearly always 2-3 years, often much longer. When you buy PLTR, you better plan on holding a long time or you'll almost certainly be selling.
Here, let me help you with that using a simple visual.
That's volatility and it will shake weak hands, forcing them to sell. That's the fear part of volatility. But keep in mind that volatility also generates greed. When the price is rising like crazy the herd jumps on board:
No new catalysts? That's not entirely true because we know from the title that this was on the cusp of PLTR's Demo Day. Emotions. Sentiment. Yes, that's absolutely true, and the expectations of the herd itself was the catalyst. Although, to be clear, and fair, there was no tangible catalyst on July 22nd, 2021. In any event, we know PLTR will vacillate. I see no reason why this will not continue so "Fair Warning!" is issued again: Here There Be Volatility.
Wrap Up
Most investors holding PLTR are holding onto a capital loss. The downside is the difficult problem of getting back to even, or even moving into the green. We're all looking to win, right?
The upside is that it's now a bit easier to understand PLTR's price action, with a reference to volatility. Furthermore, it's a wee bit more simple to know what it will take to get to even, at least in terms of the financials.
What are the catalysts?Q2 2022 tells us quite a bit:
- Overall Revenue Growth (i.e., $473 million in Q2 2022)
- Customer Count Increases (e.g., Q2 2022 count up to 304 from 169 YoY)
- TAM Expansion (i.e., Gotham, Foundry, Apollo all open for expansion)
- New Products (e.g., Edge AI, HyperAuto, OPIs, Cosmos, Pipeline Builder)
- Developer Community (e.g., Foundry Docs, APIs public, Content Creators)
Of course, I'm still frustrated by stock-based compensation. Just look up some of my PLTR articles. It comes up many times. But, I also note that I expect that to burn down a lot over the next 2-3 years. We'll see.
While I do think that PLTR's 30% growth is at risk, I said this too:
I believe that PLTR is still a Hold. Furthermore, I would not consider buying unless we see the price dip below $8, although that might not be low enough to get me to pull the trigger. We're in rough waters right now. But, again, I do think this is very unique and special company, that should do well over the very long term.
The company isn't going bankrupt, or anything remotely that silly. And, we are below $8 at this time. I'm going to very, very cautiously issue a "Buy" of PLTR at this point, for those investors looking to lower their cost basis, and also for those investors who want to tip toe into the company. Tread carefully. Move slowly. Size properly, and be sure to diversify as appropriate for your risk tolerance and portfolio composition.
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