Palantir Extends Its Post-Earnings Climb to a New High

Palantir climbed 10.3% on Friday, closing at $172.01, its highest finish in at least three months. The move extended a rally that began with the software company’s second-quarter report last week and drew fresh fuel from an upbeat note out of Bank of America. Volume was heavy. About 77.6 million shares changed hands, 1.8 times the stock’s 20-day average.

Bank of America stays bullish

Analysts at Bank of America reaffirmed a positive rating on Palantir on Friday, pointing to the company’s artificial-intelligence software strategy, its fast-growing business with U.S. corporate customers, and its long-standing government contracts. That endorsement landed on momentum already building since Monday, when Palantir reported quarterly results that beat estimates and raised its full-year outlook. The report showed revenue growth accelerating, and the company said its commercial work with U.S. businesses was expanding fastest of all. Management described the higher forecast as its largest lift to date. A week that opened with a strong print closed with buyers still reaching for the shares.

The enthusiasm was not confined to Palantir. Other enterprise-software stocks gained on Friday as investors leaned back into the group, and Snowflake rose 3.9% in the same session. Trading desks pointed to a renewed appetite for AI-driven software as the thread tying the day’s software gainers together. The rotation reached across the group, from data-warehousing names to the AI platforms that have led the market for much of the year. Running through it is a bet on software that turns large, messy datasets into decisions companies and agencies can act on, the niche Palantir has spent years building.

A new high on heavy volume

Friday’s close carried Palantir 5.7% above its previous 90-day high of $162.66 and 60% above the low of that stretch, $107.27. The stock has gained 33% over the past 30 days, and Friday’s turnover ran well above its recent norm as the advance pulled in new buyers. The close sat above the entire three-month range, which leaves anyone who bought the stock in that window with a gain. That is a steep run for a company already valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and it leaves the shares far from the levels where they changed hands only a month ago.

Momentum of this kind cuts both ways. The volume that carries a stock to a record can reverse quickly when the mood turns, and a price stretched by a fast advance leaves little cushion for any stumble. The rally has also widened the gap between where Palantir trades and the revenue it currently books, which is part of why the argument over the stock has grown louder even as it climbs.

On the calendar

Palantir’s next scheduled event is its third-quarter report, due November 9. The questions from here are concrete. Does the jump in U.S. commercial revenue that drove last week’s results hold, and can the company turn its pipeline of AI projects into repeat business at the pace its raised guidance assumes. Those answers will come from the numbers, not from a single trading session.

This is a general-market summary for information only — not investment advice, and not a recommendation regarding any security.