The consulting group headed by Peter Thiel and Alexander Karp (the man in purple in the illustration) is built on the promise of its ability to overcome all difficulties to address the complex problems of its clients. It's a bit vague, but it seems to work. As good strategists, the company's directors have also been quick to integrate AI into their range of offerings. If you want a general overview of Palantir, read this paper. If you want an overview of what not to do with Palantir, here it is.

Getting back to the news, last night the group reported full-year sales ahead of Wall Street estimates on Monday, and guided on revenues of around $3.75 billion this year. Again, better than expected. Palantir is paying just under 400 times 2024 earnings (based on a capitalization of $191 billion, excluding the rise expected at today's opening). By way of comparison, the average P/E of the Invesco QQQ ETF, the largest ETF tracking the Nasdaq, was 40.3 at year-end 2024. Palantir's P/E comes down to 200 times expected earnings in two years' time ($938 million for 2026, according to the average of analyst expectations compiled by S&P Capital IQ). That's very generous, but it doesn't stop investors from being literally hypnotized by the group.

It's not unusual to see Palantir shares pop like champagne corks. In fact, it's a regular occurrence during earnings releases. To illustrate this, we used MarketScreener's charting tool, which includes news items, in this case earnings releases. Of the last nine quarterly earnings releases, seven resulted in a sharp rise:

Palantir

A popular AI offering

Palantir communicates extensively on its AIP solution, an artificial intelligence platform for analyzing, testing and debugging code and evaluating AI-related scenarios. In short, AI for AI. And it's working, because customers are lining up at the door: the fourth quarter saw a marked acceleration in the number of new customers. The market loves it, of course.

At last night's results presentation, management strongly emphasized its ability to offer customers concrete solutions. This is Palantir's trademark. "Most organizations are currently stuck on the wrong side of the widening chasm, working on their 2, 5 and 10-year plans, which become obsolete a few days later, without ever taking With Palantir, as soon as the work begins, we offer our customers true quantified exceptionalism," enthused Ryan Taylor, one of the company's top executives.

The content of the conference also confirms a major element for the investment scenario in the company: Palantir's interests are totally aligned with those of the new American administration. This is no mean feat for a company that generates over 40% of its revenues from a public sector that is about to be swept under the rug by Elon Musk's DOGE.