Today is supposed to be the listing day for Palantir and Asana. Does anyone know what time these stocks will go on sale?
Any thoughts on these companies? I’m interested in both, even though the former especially has perhaps ethically questionable operations (my own opinion).
I noticed myself that Yahoo Finance had a video where the NYSE Vice President only said that trading will start as soon as it’s ready. So he didn’t give any specific time, but apparently it will take some time for them to get the price right.
Exactly, so on the first trading day, things will start with a kind of big “auction / price setting,” which might take several hours.
Edit: We actually already have a thread like this, where both have probably been mentioned:
In my opinion, Palantir’s business model, especially concerning the public sector, is genuinely interesting because the company has become an established service provider for several large agencies in the United States in a field where it’s very difficult for new players to enter. How can you offer a competitor to a current service when no one outside even knows exactly what that current service is? The public sector still accounts for a very significant portion of the company’s business, according to MarketWatch, still just under half. If Palantir continues to do a good job, especially in places like Langley and the Pentagon, there’s unlikely to be any interest in re-tendering the company’s services anytime soon.
Due to its strong reliance on public sector clients, Palantir is also likely less susceptible to economic fluctuations than most other tech hype companies. Google’s or Facebook’s ad sales, and thus the entire company’s revenue, start to falter as soon as the economy takes even a slight downturn, but Palantir is certainly a much more defensive company than many other tech sector firms in this regard.
The company’s price tag in relation to revenue and losses is just a bit alarming:
At the end of the first trading day… Palantir’s market value totaled approximately $21 billion
In 2019, the company’s revenue was about $743 million, which was about a quarter more than the previous year. In the first half of this year, the company’s revenue continued to grow by 49 percent from the previous year, despite the difficult market situation.
The company made total net losses of approximately $580 million in 2019, which corresponded to about 78 percent of the company’s revenue. In the first half of 2020, the company’s net loss decreased to $165 million.
However, valuation levels for technology companies are so high across the board that I guess this just has to be accepted as the new normal.
Palantir ended up around 34% in the green, having been over 50% up yesterday.
Asana ended up 37% in the green, and was over 40% up yesterday.
I don’t understand anything about these, I’m just wondering if these are genuine hype stocks that could continue to rise?
In my opinion, they lack a crucial factor: They don’t sell anything to the mass consumer market.
Of course, it’s impossible to say for sure at this stage of their stock market journey, but at least based on media attention, these have generated an exceptional amount of interest in the mainstream media. Even Helsingin Sanomat (Hesari) has had several articles about the listing (1, 2, 3), even though usually listings of US companies don’t interest mainstream media like Hesari at all.
Palantir is definitely interesting, but to some extent it is probably susceptible to political currents. At this moment, we need to see for a while how the situation develops in the US and what the strategic development targets of the new administration might be.
Have you looked into the Grid Meta-Information System? What does it practically mean? I’ve tried to find time for it, but it always gets buried under other things.
Meta-model-based systems can mean so many different things, starting from application generation. They haven’t really been implemented on a large scale globally, and regarding Palantir, it’s briefly about data mining. I’m mainly looking for what’s so revolutionary about this, if someone could describe it briefly.
I don’t know that field of technology well enough to say anything. It’s really difficult to say whether Palantir’s product is actually revolutionary in some way, or whether the company has just been exceptionally successful at selling its product to the public sector. In any case, customers have at least seemed to be satisfied with Palantir, as many authorities have been clients of the company for over a decade.
DENVER–(Business Wire)–Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE:PLTR) announced today that it was awarded a $36m one-year indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract with the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) for enterprise data integration and data management to support the NCATS Secure Scientific Platforms Environment.
Read more: Press Releases Archive - Digital Journal
Palantir was a bit of a mysterious company to me in every way, but the following dialogue shed some light on the company’s operations and, to some extent, piqued my interest:
There has been some resentment on US forums regarding insider sales after the listing, but here’s a different perspective:
In short, the company went public directly without issuing new shares. Skilled employees are attracted to the company with shares in addition to salary, and it’s natural that these are converted into cash after the listing. As my own speculation, I could imagine that it would also be a good thing for investors if the ownership base expands this way. The author thus considered the relatively moderate drop following the listing a good buying opportunity, even though he also sees risks in the company, for example, on the ethical side. Apparently, Google had dropped a gig for ICE (I can’t think of a smarter translation right now than local immigration and customs) for digital profiling under pressure, and Palantir immediately snatched it up without any pangs of conscience. As my own further speculation, I did wonder myself whether this company might have been better listed during Trump’s term than during a potential Democratic term, but I still took a monitoring position at prices under ten.
Yesterday, the New York Times had an interesting and very extensive report on Palantir; it’s worth checking out if you’re interested in the company. The article also has an audio version (found at the same link if you scroll down a few paragraphs), which lasts over an hour.
As is typical for the New York Times, the main focus of the story is, of course, on the potential ethical problems of the company’s business operations, but at the same time, the article opens up the company’s origin story and operating principles in an interesting way.
Today on social media I’ve seen several price targets set between $12-15. I haven’t had time/energy to check their accuracy, but at least a solid +10% on the board.
Here’s a fresh “overweight” report from Morgan Stanley:
Edit. Painted with a pretty wide bull brush, but admittedly an interesting stock.
I don’t know if anyone else follows this company
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Anyway, a possible deal in Japan could be brewing. The Japan Times discusses it here:
Narasaki brushed aside Tokyo’s concerns over information management, saying that Palantir never looks at data of customers, such as governments and large enterprises.
Unlike services for individual customers from information technology giants such as Google, Palantir does not use customer data for its own businesses, he added.
Edit. Oh, and the first quarter info after the listing is on the 12th.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/palantir-announces-date-third-quarter-200500811.html
EDIT2. Quite an interesting article about Palantir’s growth targets related to US defense:
This is a good timely pick since I’ve also been thinking about the company’s future depending on who’s in office.
Palantir’s AI investments are apparently full steam ahead. Billionaire Thiel and current Palantir CEO Alex Karp, Thiel’s classmate at Stanford Law School, are at opposite ends of the political spectrum, as Thiel has supported President Trump, and Karp is an avowed progressive “socialist” who has adamantly opposed Trump. They nevertheless have come to a meeting of the minds in supporting U.S. military forces and intelligence agencies.
Democrats might be a bit more reluctant about facial recognition technology and government data collection, even regarding illegal immigration, but on the other hand, warfare is also a Democratic concern, and terrorist attacks aren’t going anywhere. It’s also possible that the coronavirus will persist for a while and we’re generally in an era of pandemics, so there will be more demand than ever for all kinds of AI software to curb and track them. Based on what I’ve read, Palantir also doesn’t suffer from its “nationality” but is considered very reliable, which reduces the risk of getting deals in both Asia and the United States.
And let’s also include Palantir’s publicly released guidance for Q3:
https://investors.palantir.com/news-details/2020/Palantir-Expects-121-Million-in-Non-GAAP-Operating-Income-and-42-Revenue-Growth-for-the-Year-Ending-2020/default.aspx
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/palantir-clears-ipo-161549128.html
A week until the earnings report, and the market seems to be pricing in a pretty good result, given the strong momentum. Who knows how much of that is company-specific and how much is due to the general index rise, though Palantir was already seeing gains or a neutral result in the last few days of the previous general downturn.
The earnings report came out when the stock market closed. Forecasts were beaten, but there’s already been quite a rally for a week, so we’ll see if there will be any significant upward spike. This isn’t a Chinese car manufacturer, after all 
. I personally bought more during the day’s bigger drop, as everything pointed to a decent result.
In today’s market, an okay or good result just isn’t enough. Even this one is -8% after hours. Of course, the recent rally was absolutely insane, so it seems like the air might be coming out of this one now too.
I’ve been watching these US stocks so much that I’m not quite ready to commit to tomorrow’s direction yet. Those American guys seem to be pretty quick in their moves. And best of all, in the long run, the direction is right. The first earnings report after listing is behind us. Unless there are major ethical disagreements with the Democrats, it will probably stay in my portfolio for quite a while, even though I’ve had to make one reduction due to “excessive” rise.
Edit. Now we are at +3%. If I had to guess, tomorrow will be something between -20% and +20%. Take or leave a few percent.
Edit2. The first target price I’ve come across after the earnings report. I haven’t really been following the markets much today, but a neat +8% seems to be on the board.
Jefferies analyst Brent Thill raised his share-price target to $18 from $13, affirming his buy rating.
Palantir’s progress looks quite good; the market really appreciates the army deals that came to light last week, or maybe it’s just general hype. Either way, we’re sticking with it.
There aren’t many of these cryptic Big Data analytics companies on the stock exchange, and it’s impossible to find a direct comparison. Few understand what Palantir actually does, but with the hype around it being on the same level as Tesla’s, the rise will likely continue for a while.
The closest comparison is probably Snowflake, with a market cap of $78.06B. Palantir still has some way to go to reach that, as its market cap is currently only $41.5B, even though all its figures are better. In light of the key metrics, Palantir seems like a more attractive target, and its future looks bright.