- Palantir posted blockbuster Q3 2025 results: revenue up 63% YoY, raised full-year guidance, commercial revenue surged 121%.
- Shares swung wildly in November, down ~20% that month despite 120% YTD gains, driven by valuation worries and profit-taking.
- Outlooks split: bulls cite sticky contracts, AIP adoption and long-term upside; analysts remain mixed with a Hold consensus.
Man, if you’ve been studying the AI trade like I have, Palantir’s been that one stock that keeps you up at night at times – the good kind of up, mostly.
One minute it’s crushing earnings with deals that make you think, “This is the future,” and the next, it’s getting hammered by valuation fears that feel like every other tech name right now.
As we flip the calendar to December 2025, PLTR closed yesterday at $167.27, down a hair from the week before but still nursing wounds from its worst month since 2023.
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Down nearly 20% in November alone, erasing some of that post-earnings glow, but zoom out and shares are up over 120% year-to-date.
It’s like watching a marathon runner trip right before the finish line – frustrating, but you know they’ve got the legs for the comeback.
I remember when PLTR first popped on my radar back in the early days of the ChatGPT hype.
It wasn’t just another data play; it was the one built for the messy, real-world stuff – governments tracking threats, companies untangling supply chains.
PLTR Wins You Cannot Ignore
Fast-forward to Q3 2025 earnings in early November, and boom: revenue hit $1.181 billion, up 63% year-over-year, with U.S. commercial revenue exploding 121%.
CEO Alex Karp didn’t mince words in the shareholder letter, basically saying, “We were right. You were wrong,” after skeptics had bet against the AI Platform (AIP) turning into actual dollars.
They raised full-year guidance to $4.396–$4.4 billion (that’s 45% growth) and Q4 to $1.33 billion (61% up), with adjusted margins holding strong above 50%.
Commercial wins kept rolling in too – think multiyear pacts with PwC UK and FTAI Aviation for engine services – proving enterprises aren’t just kicking tires on AIP; they’re flooring it.
But here’s where it gets spicy: the market’s mood swing.
Turbulence Becomes Present
Shares spiked 7% right after earnings on November 4, only to swing wildly overnight – from +7% to -5% in after-hours, vaporizing $60 billion in market cap before rebounding.
By late October, PLTR had kissed $207.52, its all-time high, but November’s AI sell-off turned it into a poster child for bubble worries.
Investors rotated out of high-flyers like Palantir into lagging semis (hello, AMAT and LRCX catching bids now), and suddenly that 166x forward sales multiple looked less like visionary pricing and more like “wait, is this the next dot-com?”
Even Cathie Wood’s Ark trimmed its stake, swapping some PLTR for META and COIN amid the crypto-AI mashup.
Billionaire Ken Griffin did the same, lightening up on Palantir while doubling down on Super Micro (SMCI), per CNN.
And the drama didn’t stop there. Karp went full scorched-earth on short sellers, alleging “illegal” naked shorting was tanking the stock – a claim that’s got retail fired up on X, with threads calling it the “biggest wake-up call for big companies.”
It’s not just noise; institutional flows show 2,389 funds holding $209.7 billion in PLTR, with a net $24.6 billion inflow despite 159 funds bailing.
Smart money’s mixed, but the bulls point to sticky contracts and AIP bootcamps converting at warp speed – over 100 in Q3 alone.
Diving deeper into the guts of Palantir’s machine, it’s the platforms that make it tick. Gotham for intel ops, Foundry for enterprise data weaving, Apollo for deployment muscle, and AIP tying it all with AI smarts.
Government revenue’s steady at 55% of the mix, but commercial’s the rocket fuel – expected to double again in 2025.
Retail Investor Sentiment
Recent X chatter highlights how Palantir’s turning alums into founders at a 1/3 clip, thanks to brutal interviews that weed out the rehearsed and build “taste” for hard software problems.
One alum put it bluntly: “You can’t prep for Palantir interviews” – they force live problem-solving, data security, reliability from day one.
It’s cult-like in the best way, breeding talent that’s now spinning out startups.
Of course, not everyone’s toasting. On X, the surveillance skeptics are loud – El Salvador as a “Palantir state” prototype for AI-labeled prisons, or Oura Ring data fears (debunked, but viral anyway).
Karp’s own interview with Blick painted a grim Europe – “sleeping” on defense tech while the U.S. (and Switzerland) gear up for what’s coming.
He said it straight: “I want Switzerland to do well” amid Western values under siege.
Ties to Anduril and xAI pop up in threads too, framing PLTR as the backbone for a new defense-tech era – drones, data, the works.
PLTR Stock Forecast
So, where does that leave us heading into Q4 close and 2026? Analysts are split: median one-year target at $187.87 (11.5% upside), consensus “Hold” with three Buys and two Sells.
CoinCodex sees a dip to $165.62 by New Year’s, then $310 by end-2026 if AI adoption sticks.
Polymarket bettors are range-bound for December ($154–$178), but bullish on 2026 as enterprise cycles shorten.
Key watch: February’s Q4 earnings – can they beat $1.33 billion and keep margins fat? Broader AI spend (Nvidia sympathy play) and new deals could flip the script.
Dips for majority of retail investors? They’re the fuel.
Tom Nash nailed it in a recent Thai investor event: “Palantir builds the operating system that connects every piece of data… so the biggest problems on earth can actually be solved.”
No fiction, no crystal ball – just software that dominates.
If you’re in the niche of AI-defense plays, this pullback could be your entry. New to it? Start with the earnings deck; it’ll hook you.
What’s your take – bubble or buy? Drop it below; let’s unpack the next leg.
Also Read: Short Sellers Are Now Throwing One Another Under the Bus
