Palantir Earnings — Never Boring

After the close yesterday, Palantir (PLTR) raised guidance for the 10th straight quarter and reported its ninth earnings triple play in the last ten quarters. This morning, shares are up over 25%. That puts the stock on pace for its second-best daily performance since its IPO in September 2020. For those keeping score, the largest one-day gain for the stock was on 2/6/24 when PLTR surged more than 30% in reaction to earnings. Coincidentally, that was the last earnings report before the current streak of ten straight guidance raises began.

As strong as today’s action in PLTR has been, it only just moved the stock back above its 200-day moving average. Additionally, even after today's surge, the stock is merely back to its early June high. The stock also remains well below its 52-week high of just above $207, illustrating just how depressed shares have been in recent months.

For anyone who has ever been involved in PLTR, it is no stranger to volatility, especially in reaction to earnings. The snapshot below from our Earnings Explorer shows every prior earnings report from the company along with how shares reacted to each report. Not including today’s reaction, PLTR has rallied more than 20% in reaction to six of its 23 historical earnings reports. Even more amazing is that the stock has never had an earnings reaction day where it moved less than 5% in either direction.

Lots of stocks have violent reactions to earnings, and many have averaged one-day moves well above 10% in either direction on their earnings reaction days. Even the most volatile stocks have their one-off ‘snoozer’ earnings reports. Not Alex Karp’s Palantir, though.

The table below shows Russell 1,000 stocks that have been public for at least three years and have had fewer than five earnings reaction days with moves of less than 5%. Besides PLTR, every other stock on the list has had at least one earnings report where it moved less than 5% (up or down) on its reaction day. When it comes to earnings, Palantir stock is always just as wild as its CEO’s hair.