Palantir shares have shed nearly half their value since peaking at an all-time closing high of $207.18 last November.
Palantir has been known to command an eye-watering valuation premium relative to the rest of the software industry. But as the artificial-intelligence hardware trade continues to suck up investor dollars, shares of the data-analytics company have come to fetch a slightly less outrageous multiple.
Palantir (PLTR) shares fell 5.5% in Thursday trading to record their seventh consecutive day of losses. Since the beginning of the month, Palantir's stock has shed 31.5%. According to Dow Jones Market Data, that puts the stock on pace for its worst month since February 2021 - back when Palantir was still a deeply unprofitable business.
Palantir shares closed at $107.27 on Thursday, marking a new 52-week low. Shares have fallen nearly 50% from their all-time high of $207.18 last November.
The stock has also experienced a technical breakdown over the past few months, sitting firmly below its 50-day moving average of $137.04, according to FactSet. The 50-day moving average is often used as a sign of intermediate momentum among traders, and sinking below this indicator can signal a downtrend for the stock.
Palantir's stock drop comes even as the company receives praise for its AI business, which has helped differentiate it from other software companies. Palantir's solutions unite data silos within organizations to create a centralized platform for AI agents. This digital infrastructure is a significant moat for Palantir, Larry Goldberg, managing partner of venture-capital firm Lumasenti, told MarketWatch earlier this week. "No one else has that yet," Goldberg said. It's "hard for clients to do on their own."
The selloff is testing Palantir's rich and controversial valuation. At the stock's peak in November, it traded at over 250x forward earnings. While Palantir's earnings multiple has compressed significantly, shares are still trading at elevated levels relative to the broader software sector. Today, Palantir shares trade at 61x forward earnings, significantly higher than the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF's IGV forward earnings of 23x, according to FactSet.
Nancy Tengler, CEO and CIO at Laffer Tengler Investments, attributed the Palantir selloff to a rotation in capital away from software names and into semiconductor heavyweights like Micron $(MU)$. In a note last month, Tengler wrote that Palantir and other software companies like ServiceNow, Crowdstrike $(CRWD)$ and Microsoft $(MSFT)$ "will return to favor" once the buying frenzy surrounding Micron settles down.
On Wednesday, Micron's blockbuster earnings and strong forward guidance signaled that the supply-demand imbalance for memory chips is unlikely to ease anytime soon. Shares of Micron rose about 16% on Thursday, indicating that there may be a ways to go before investor enthusiasm for AI hardware takes a pause.
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