TLDR
- Goldman Sachs upgraded Palantir to Buy from Neutral, setting a $230 price target.
- The target implies about 18% upside from Wednesday’s closing price of $194.12.
- Palantir stock rose 2% on Thursday even as major indexes traded lower.
- Analyst Gabriela Borges points to sovereign AI demand and bespoke software as growth drivers.
- 71% of analysts tracking Palantir rate it Buy or Overweight, well above the market average.
Palantir Technologies stock climbed 2% to $197.53 on Thursday after Goldman Sachs upgraded the shares to Buy from Neutral. The move came even as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both traded lower on the day.
Palantir Technologies Inc., PLTR
Goldman analyst Gabriela Borges set a new price target of $230. That figure implies roughly 18% upside from Wednesday’s closing price of $194.12.
Borges believes Palantir’s total addressable market is set to expand. She points to the rise of sovereign AI, where governments and large enterprises want to keep sensitive data under local control instead of sending it to public cloud providers.
Why Analysts Like the Setup
Other analysts share the bullish view. D.A. Davidson’s Gil Luria also rates the stock Buy, with a $250 price target. He argues that trust issues around big AI labs are pushing customers toward Palantir as a control layer for their data.
Borges also pointed to a shift toward custom AI applications. Companies increasingly want software built for specific tasks like supply chain management or internal decision-making, rather than generic chatbot tools.
She cited CrowdStrike’s new SafeMind cybersecurity system and Datadog’s machine learning forecasting tools as examples of this trend playing out across the software sector.
Palantir’s advantage, according to Borges, comes from its forward-deployed engineering model. Engineers work directly with customers to adapt the software, and Palantir has reportedly gotten efficient enough to automate parts of that process with AI.
She added that industries with less in-house tech talent could be a real opportunity for Palantir going forward, since those companies can’t easily build this kind of software themselves.
Valuation Remains a Sticking Point
Palantir’s valuation has been a recurring concern for investors. The stock traded above 200 times forward earnings last October before pulling back.
As of Wednesday’s close, Palantir trades at 91.1 times forward earnings. That’s still well above the S&P 500’s 19.4 multiple and the Nasdaq Composite’s 22.5 multiple.
Earnings growth is expected to offset some of that premium. Analysts project Palantir’s earnings per share will reach $1.60 in 2026 and climb to $14.38 by 2030, an average annual growth rate above 70%.
Of the 35 analysts tracked by FactSet, 25, or 71%, rate Palantir Buy or Overweight. That compares with a typical Buy-rating ratio of 55% to 60% for S&P 500 companies overall. The average price target across analysts sits near $204.
Palantir shares are up 16% year-to-date, trailing the Nasdaq-100’s 24% gain over the same period. Over the past six months, though, the stock has surged 38%.
Goldman noted Palantir is running at an $8 billion revenue pace with growth near 100%. Trailing twelve-month revenue growth stands at 79%, with a gross profit margin of 85%.
Other firms have also raised targets recently. UBS lifted its target to $250 citing AI demand momentum, while Yorkville Ives started coverage with an Outperform rating and a $250 target.
Rosenblatt reiterated its Buy rating and $225 target following Palantir’s rollout of its AI-powered SMART system for the Federal Aviation Administration, the company’s first such deployment in the U.S.
Chart Analysis
Palantir trades at $198.78, up 2%, pressing against resistance near $200-$204 inside a rising wedge pattern. The $160 zone below now acts as support after the stock’s sharp August breakout. RSI sits at 69.97, nearing overbought, while MACD stays bullish but shows momentum cooling off.
What to watch: a break above $204 could open the door to fresh highs, while a drop below $180 may signal a pullback toward $160.
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