New York, July 3, 2026, 11:04 EDT
- U.S. stocks are closed Friday for the Independence Day holiday. NYSE says July 3 is the break in 2026.
- Palantir Technologies Inc. NASDAQ:PLTR finished Thursday at $129.30, rising 14.5% since June 26 and up 20.5% from the closing low on June 25.
- D.A. Davidson’s $175 price target on Palantir would tack on about $117.5 billion in value, based on the Q1 diluted share count. That’s close to Lockheed Martin’s NYSE:LMT current market cap.
- The focus this week is on whether the Nvidia-government AI setup will support a stock trading at about 43 times Palantir’s 2026 revenue target.
U.S. stock markets were closed Friday for the Independence Day observed holiday, so Palantir Technologies Inc. NASDAQ:PLTR only had a four-day trading week. That ended a rough June, with the stock starting July on a firmer note. The New York Stock Exchange will also observe Independence Day on Friday, July 3 in 2026, while regular trading runs 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET otherwise.
Palantir didn’t just come back; it outperformed. Shares finished at $129.30 on Thursday, up 2.84% for the session, while SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust NYSEARCA:SPY fell $0.85 and Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 NASDAQ:QQQ dropped $12.33 in the final U.S. trade before the holiday.
| Security | Last print before holiday | Last-session move |
|---|---|---|
| Palantir Technologies Inc. NASDAQ:PLTR | $129.30 | up 2.84% |
| SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust NYSEARCA:SPY | $744.78 | fell $0.85 |
| Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 NASDAQ:QQQ | $712.60 | dropped $12.33 |
Palantir jumped 20.5% from the June 25 close to July 2, with around 322 million shares changing hands over six sessions—that’s about 12.5% of its Q1 diluted shares. This isn’t a standard holiday rally. The move comes after Palantir ended June 25 at $107.27, its lowest close that month.
D.A. Davidson’s Gil Luria upgraded Palantir, moving the stock to buy from neutral and bumping his target up to $175 from $165. Luria said Palantir has “grown into its valuation” and called out “several competitive advantages” as firms want orchestration layers on top of AI models, Barron’s and Investor’s Business Daily reported. Barron’s
Palantir CEO Alex Karp used market terms to make his point this week. Talking about the Nvidia Corp. NASDAQ:NVDA partnership on CNBC, Karp said, “Everyone who uses LLMs on the battlefield runs on top of our Ontology.” He said Palantir’s layer keeps models “safe and useful and precise.” Karp added the company is “completely agnostic” about which model clients pick. MarketWatch
That’s why the $175 price target stands out more than the shift in rating. Based on Palantir’s Q1 diluted share count of 2.571 billion, $175 a share would give it nearly $450 billion in equity. That’s a $117.5 billion jump from where it closed Thursday, not far off Lockheed Martin’s $125.9 billion market cap.
| Palantir valuation math | At $129.30 close | At $175 target |
|---|---|---|
| Equity value with Q1 diluted share count | $332.4 billion | $449.9 billion |
| Increase since Thursday’s close | — | $117.5 billion |
| 2026 revenue guide midpoint multiple | 43.4x | 58.8x |
Defense names don’t come close right now. Palantir’s market cap is now above RTX Corp. NYSE:RTX, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics Corp. NYSE:GD, and Northrop Grumman Corp. NYSE:NOC. Its P/E also tops those defense giants by a wide margin.
| Company | Market value | Current P/E |
|---|---|---|
| Palantir Technologies Inc. NASDAQ:PLTR | $332.4 billion | 145.3 |
| RTX Corp. NYSE:RTX | $268.3 billion | 37.4 |
| Lockheed Martin Corp. NYSE:LMT | $125.9 billion | 26.4 |
| General Dynamics Corp. NYSE:GD | $101.0 billion | 23.5 |
| Northrop Grumman Corp. NYSE:NOC | $78.2 billion | 17.2 |
Traders are watching whether the market keeps valuing Palantir like a fast-growing software name or starts pricing it as a defense contractor. In its May statement, Palantir said Q1 revenue jumped 85% to $1.633 billion and U.S. government sales climbed 84% to $687 million. The company also lifted its 2026 revenue view to between $7.650 billion and $7.662 billion.
The worry is the stock may have already baked in more than just the next contract cycle. Palantir shares closed Thursday 37.7% off the 52-week high of $207.52, but up 21.6% from the 52-week low at $106.37. Investors will be watching $132.88 for next week, which was Thursday’s high, along with $125.73 from Wednesday’s close and $116.67 from Tuesday’s close.
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