NEW YORK, Jan 5, 2026, 06:50 ET
- Wall Street is largely neutral on Palantir, while analysts see more upside in Oracle, a Motley Fool analysis said.
- Another Motley Fool column highlighted Alphabet, Micron and Nvidia as potential alternatives to Palantir for 2026.
- Investors are increasingly weighing AI-driven costs — from chips to power — as a risk to valuations.
Wall Street analysts are largely neutral on Palantir Technologies (PLTR) and see more upside in Oracle (ORCL) as investors enter 2026 still sorting winners from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, a Motley Fool analysis published on Sunday showed.
That matters now because last year’s run-up in AI-linked shares left little room for disappointment. Investors are increasingly splitting between companies selling AI software and those building the infrastructure — data centres, cloud capacity and chips — that make the technology run.
Cost pressures are also creeping into the conversation as companies race to expand data-centre capacity. “The costs are going up not down in our forecast, because there’s inflation in chip costs and inflation in power costs,” Morgan Stanley strategist Andrew Sheets said in a Reuters report on Monday. Reuters
Palantir shares last closed at $167.86, down about 5.6%, while Oracle ended at $195.71, up about 0.4%, according to market data.
Palantir sells software that uses AI to integrate and analyse large datasets for governments and companies. The Motley Fool analysis said the stock’s valuation — roughly 256 times “forward earnings,” or expected profit over the next 12 months — has made many analysts cautious even as demand for AI tools grows.
Oracle’s bull case rests on cloud infrastructure, where “hyperscalers” — the biggest cloud operators — have been spending heavily to support AI workloads. Oracle reported $455 billion in remaining performance obligations, a backlog measure of revenue under contract but not yet recognised, and said booked cloud revenue was on track to exceed $500 billion. Reuters
In a separate column, Motley Fool writer Keith Speights argued investors looking beyond Palantir might consider Alphabet, Micron Technology and Nvidia, pointing to Alphabet’s broad AI products, Micron’s high-bandwidth memory used in AI servers and Nvidia’s dominance in AI chips. Speights also contrasted valuations, putting Palantir’s forward price-to-earnings multiple at 181.8 versus Micron at 9.2, and said Nvidia’s recent revenue growth roughly matched Palantir’s.
But the trade carries risks. Oracle still has to fund data-centre construction and turn backlog into cash, while Palantir’s premium valuation leaves little cushion if contract growth slows or customers delay AI spending.
