The market has closed in New York. Time stamp: Feb 15, 2026, 10:32 (EST).
- Palantir closed out Friday’s session up 1.8%, landing at $131.41.
- DISA has cleared PFCS Forward for both on‑premises and edge deployments, the company said, expanding its IL5/IL6 authorizations.
- Defense cloud stocks are seeing some momentum, but investors are bracing for a fresh valuation tug-of-war going into the next U.S. session.
Palantir Technologies Inc finished Friday with shares settling at $131.41, gaining 1.8% for the session as markets wound down ahead of the long U.S. holiday weekend. Throughout the day, the stock bounced around, hitting lows of $128.52 and reaching as high as $133.04. Trading volume landed at roughly 49 million shares.
With U.S. markets closed Monday for Presidents Day, investors have a breather to digest late-week headlines on defense stocks and the “AI trade” before everything restarts on Tuesday. It’s been choppy: the Nasdaq ended lower Friday as large tech names dragged, and “any whiff of optimism continues to get rejected,” said Michael James, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities. (Reuters)
Palantir doesn’t usually see much calm in its trading, but the setup right now is straightforward. Tuesday’s results will test whether investors keep betting that those government contracts lock in reliable revenue—or if concerns over the stock’s valuation continue to dominate.
Palantir announced Thursday that the Defense Information Systems Agency has given the green light to its Federal Cloud Service “PFCS Forward,” expanding its existing provisional Impact Level 5 and Impact Level 6 authorizations to cover both on-premises and edge setups. “The future of warfighting demands software that can operate anywhere—from enterprise data centers to the tactical edge,” said Palantir USG president and CTO Akash Jain. (Business Wire)
Put simply, this clearance should let U.S. government clients deploy Palantir’s stack beyond standard cloud environments — right down to hardware in the field. Palantir claims its “authorize once, use many” approach can shorten the process for getting an Authority to Operate, the official nod to run systems on government networks.
A familiar valuation debate resurfaced for Palantir. Investor Michael Burry, in a new Substack post, argued the stock’s “fair price” might sit well under current levels; he revealed he’s holding put options—a stance that tends to benefit from a drop in the shares. (Business Insider)
Palantir provides data analytics and software to government clients and businesses, with a recent focus on artificial intelligence tools as more companies look to embed generative AI in routine workflows. Throw together its defense ties, lofty hopes, and the rapid-fire AI story, and the stock’s moves can get sharp when the mood shifts.
Traders are eyeing whether the DISA authorization turns up in subsequent contract news or signals wider deployment, particularly for workloads that aren’t able to depend on centralized cloud connections.
The risk hasn’t disappeared. Palantir’s stock is still quick to tumble if investors sense the valuation is baking in years of perfect delivery. Any whiff of cooling demand, procurement holdups, or a broader move out of richly-priced AI names, and the shares can get slammed.
The real action picks up with the market reopen. U.S. exchanges were shut Monday, so Palantir watchers have to wait until trading restarts Tuesday, Feb. 17, to gauge what’s next for demand — and for the crowd chasing pricey growth.
