New York, January 8, 2026, 16:10 EST — After-hours
- Palantir shares fell about 2.5% after a choppy session that saw the stock swing more than $12.
- Truist initiated coverage this week with a Buy rating and a $223 price target.
- SEC filings showed recent share sales by a director and a senior officer under preset trading plans.
Shares of Palantir Technologies Inc. fell about 2.5% to $177.22 late in Thursday’s session after touching $186.89 earlier in the day. The stock bottomed at $174.42 and was on pace for its biggest one-day drop so far this week.
The slide comes as investors reassess how much they are willing to pay for fast-growing software names that have become shorthand for “AI trade” in the market. Palantir has been one of them, and it does not take much to move it.
A fresh bullish initiation from Truist and a batch of insider-trading disclosures have kept attention on the stock even as the broader market turns jumpy again. Traders are also watching for catalysts that can reset expectations, not just move price targets.
Truist Securities analyst Arvind Ramnani started coverage on Tuesday with a Buy rating and a $223 price target, calling Palantir a “best-in-class AI asset.” In the same note, he pointed to what he described as a free cash flow margin above 40% and a run of profitable quarters on a GAAP basis, the standard U.S. accounting yardstick. 1
Separate filings showed several Palantir insiders sold stock tied to trades executed on Jan. 2. Director Alexander D. Moore sold 20,000 shares in multiple transactions, and the filing said the sales were made under a Rule 10b5-1 plan — a preset trading program that can be used to schedule sales in advance. Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Legal Officer Ryan D. Taylor sold 12,000 shares, and director Lauren Elaina Friedman Stat sold 3,400 shares, both also under 10b5-1 plans, the filings showed. 2
Palantir’s drop came as the Nasdaq and S&P 500 were dragged lower by declines in large tech stocks, while defense names rallied after President Donald Trump floated a much larger military budget figure for 2027. Investors also weighed weekly jobless-claims data and looked ahead to Friday’s U.S. payrolls report. 3
Valuation remains the awkward part of the story. An Invezz commentary carried by TradingView argued “risk-reward” in Palantir is skewed against buyers at current levels and warned that features such as “agentic AI” could end up embedded inside big platforms like Microsoft’s Azure or Salesforce, squeezing specialised vendors. 4
Beyond the day-to-day swings, investors will be listening for any shift in how Palantir talks about commercial growth, margins and stock-based compensation, a key cost for many software firms. They will also watch whether management signals a stronger appetite for cash returns such as buybacks, which bulls often cite as a way to offset dilution.
Next up is Friday’s U.S. jobs report, which can move rate expectations and, with it, the valuation math for high-multiple stocks. Palantir’s next earnings report is also on the calendar in early February; Nasdaq’s earnings page lists Feb. 2 as an estimated date, though the company has not confirmed it. 5
