NEW YORK, July 2, 2026, 09:05 (EDT)
- Palantir Technologies Inc. NASDAQ:PLTR finished 7.77% higher Wednesday and traded up again ahead of the Nasdaq open.
- The stock’s one-day jump tacked on around $23.3 billion to diluted equity value, almost triple Palantir’s midpoint revenue target for 2026.
- D.A. Davidson’s upgrade and Palantir’s Nvidia Corp. NASDAQ:NVDA agreement both signal one thing for investors: who controls the AI model could be key, possibly outweighing the model itself.
Palantir Technologies Inc. NASDAQ:PLTR trades more like a gatekeeper for enterprise AI than a regular software play.
The stock finished Wednesday at $125.73, up $9.06, or 7.77%, with 58.56 million shares traded. That’s well above the 65-day average volume of 45.17 million. Premarket quotes put the shares at $128.60 as of 8:42 a.m. EDT Thursday, up 2.28%. Still off the 52-week high of $207.52.
The move stood out. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.66% on Wednesday and the S&P 500 slipped 0.22%. Chip stocks weighed, with the semiconductor index off 6.3%.
| Wednesday move | Close / level | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Palantir NASDAQ:PLTR | $125.73 | up 7.77% |
| Nasdaq Composite | 26,040.03 | down 0.66% |
| S&P 500 | 7,483.23 | off 0.22% |
| Semiconductor index | — | fell 6.3% |
Palantir’s diluted share count for the first quarter was 2.5709 billion. With shares up $9.06 on Wednesday, that pushed up diluted equity value by about $23.3 billion. That total is close to three times the midpoint of Palantir’s 2026 revenue target, which ranges from $7.650 billion to $7.662 billion. In a May filing, Palantir reported Q1 revenue at $1.633 billion, up 85%, with U.S. commercial revenue climbing 133%.
| Palantir valuation math | Figure |
|---|---|
| Stock added $9.06 per share Wednesday | $9.06 |
| Diluted shares in Q1 | 2.5709 billion |
| That’s a $23.3 billion gain in diluted value in a day | $23.3 billion |
| 2026 revenue midpoint from company | $7.656 billion |
| One-day value gain is 3.0 times that 2026 target | 3.0x |
| Company’s value at close is 42.2 times 2026 revenue guide | 42.2x |
The stock has a lot of trust baked in. It’s trading at 42 times this year’s projected revenue per diluted share. Investors aren’t buying a specific contract or model, but the belief that Palantir will be the link between customer data and whichever AI model wins next.
Palantir (PLTR) got an upgrade to Buy from Neutral at D.A. Davidson on Thursday, with analyst Gil Luria upping his price target to $175, up from $165, according to GuruFocus. D.A. Davidson told Investing.com Palantir has “grown into its valuation” and that enterprise customers are looking for an “orchestration layer” because they want to avoid locking into a single AI model provider. Investing.com
Palantir is teaming up with Nvidia on a new engine to run Nvidia AI and Nemotron open models in secure, sovereign setups. The firms rolled out the product for U.S. government and critical infrastructure clients. Palantir said it gives customers control over data, IP and AI systems, and is aimed at classified or air-gapped use cases.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp said the Nvidia engine will help the U.S. government “unleash the full power of LLMs” and handle security risks. Nvidia boss Jensen Huang called open-source AI “foundational to national security.” Business Wire
Karp stepped up his pitch to the market this week. In a CNBC interview covered by Business Insider, he said, “Something has gone completely wrong” in AI. He said companies worry about paying for “tokens that create no value,” plus losing data and their business edge. “We need to build trust,” he said. Business Insider
Palantir bulls have a new analyst upgrade, the Nvidia link, and a CEO pitch that taps into current concerns about closed AI. The bear case is still about the valuation.
Nasdaq trading hours run from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern. U.S. equity markets will be shut on Friday, July 3, for the Independence Day holiday.
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