Updated 23 October 2026. Palantir (PLTR) closed at $196.19 on Thursday 22 October, down $5.53 or 2.74 percent, giving back most of Wednesday’s 4.74 percent gain, and was $195.65 in premarket trading at 09:07 ET on Friday, down 0.28 percent (StockAnalysis). Thursday’s drop was the tape, not the company: the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.6 percent on AI financing worries after Meta raised its capex guide and created a class of non-voting stock, CoreWeave lost 10 percent and SpaceX 9 percent, and Palantir fell less than the index on volume 46 percent below average (Motley Fool, MarketBeat). The Palantir-specific story is a Gartner warning on whether forward-deployed AI can scale, which Motley Fool framed on Thursday as the question Palantir must answer on 2 November, against Citi’s $250 target set on Wednesday. Verdict: the stock is still above the $192.60 it closed at before Wednesday’s rally and 7 percent above its 50-day average; the earnings-week range holds until the print. Reference levels: $184 below, $213 above.
Key facts
- Price: close $196.19, down 2.74 percent from $201.72, range $194.54-$202.63; premarket $195.65, down $0.54 or 0.28 percent, at 09:07 ET on 23 October (StockAnalysis). Volume was about 22.5 million shares at midday on Thursday against a 41.9 million average session (MarketBeat).
- Valuation: market cap $471.46 billion; trailing P/E 167.68, PEG 3.39, beta 1.60; 52-week range $106.37-$212.94 (StockAnalysis, MarketBeat). The record high of $212.94 is 8.8 percent above the premarket price. Motley Fool puts the forward P/E at about 120 times against roughly 30 times trailing earnings for big tech.
- Technicals: 50-day moving average $183.96, 200-day $153.14 (MarketBeat). The 50-day held on 16 October’s drop to $186.03 and is the level under the $184 reference.
- Gartner: Motley Fool’s Rick Orford wrote on Thursday that Gartner has warned about the scalability of forward-deployed AI, the engineer-in-the-room model Palantir built its commercial growth on, and asked whether Palantir’s experience, reusable software, partner strategy and economics set it apart from vendors that struggle to scale it (Motley Fool, 22 October). Gartner’s January 2026 research titled service providers need to embrace the Palantir FDE model argued the opposite about the model’s competitive value; Palantir named Fujitsu a global FDE partner in September to add deployment capacity (Gartner abstract, IO Fund).
- Analysts: Citi $250 from $245, Buy, in its Q3 preview on Wednesday; Barclays $265, Baird $250, DA Davidson $250, Mizuho $245, Piper Sandler $231, Goldman Sachs Buy $230. MarketBeat consensus Moderate Buy, average $203.45, with 1 Strong Buy, 25 Buy, 9 Hold and 3 Sell; StockAnalysis average $206.43; TipRanks $212.33 (MarketBeat, StockAnalysis, TipRanks). No new rating changes were published on Thursday or Friday morning.
- Q3 on Monday 2 November: after the US close, webcast 5:00 p.m. ET (Palantir release, 12 October). Guidance from the Q2 release: revenue $2.160-$2.164 billion, which implies about 83 percent growth; a beat of the same roughly $150 million size as Q2’s would take growth to about 96 percent (Motley Fool). Q2 was revenue $1.94 billion, up 92.8 percent, EPS $0.41 against $0.34 expected, US commercial up 149 percent and US government up 90 percent (MarketBeat, Motley Fool).
- Selling: insiders sold 560,390 shares worth $97.9 million over three months, including director Lauren Friedman Stat’s 5,026 shares at $199.00 on 8 October and director Eric Woersching’s 1,000 shares at $205.00 on 9 October, both under 10b5-1 plans; insiders own 9.53 percent (MarketBeat, SEC). ARK sold about 49,333 shares across Monday to Wednesday (Benzinga, TipRanks).
- Thursday’s tape: Nasdaq Composite down 2.6 percent to 26,009, S&P 500 down 1.2 percent to 7,663; CoreWeave down 10.1 percent to $55.60, IREN down 8.4 percent, Nebius down about 7 percent after its $3.5 billion Citi facility, Meta down 6.98 percent, SpaceX down 9.14 percent (Motley Fool, Opening Bell Daily, Yahoo Finance). Friday at 09:00 ET: Nasdaq 100 futures down about 0.3 percent, S&P 500 futures 0.4 percent, Dow futures 0.8 percent; Meta, Nvidia and AMD higher premarket; Brent above $110 (Yahoo Finance).
A 2.7 percent fall on a 2.6 percent Nasdaq day
Palantir’s Thursday was ordinary in the worst session for the Nasdaq since the 16 October selloff. The index lost 2.6 percent, the financed-AI names lost 7-10 percent, and Palantir lost 2.74 percent on half its usual volume. That is a stock going down because its index went down, not a stock being sold. For comparison, on 16 October the same pressure, AI financing costs and a hot inflation print, took Palantir down 7.2 percent in a session the Nasdaq fell 1.9 percent, which Tuesday’s page covered. Thursday’s beta was a third of that. The difference is what sits between the two dates: three sessions of buying on the Knox partnership, the HSBC review and Citi’s $250, which Wednesday’s page recorded, and a close at $201.72 that only Citi’s preview explained.
What Thursday’s selling targeted was debt. Meta’s capex guide and non-voting share class, CoreWeave’s unsecured bonds yielding about 15 percent and Nebius’s $3.5 billion secured facility are all one story, who pays for the compute, and Palantir is on the other side of it. It sells the software that runs on the compute, carries no net debt, and posted a 55 percent profit margin in Q2. When the market sells AI on financing, Palantir falls with the index; when it sells AI on demand, as it did on 16 October, Palantir falls twice as hard. For the neocloud side of Thursday see our Nebius page.
Gartner’s question versus Citi’s answer
The Palantir-specific argument this week is about the forward-deployed engineer. Gartner’s warning, as Motley Fool relayed it on Thursday, is that putting engineers inside the customer does not scale: every new account needs people, and people are the one input that does not get cheaper with volume. It is the same objection that followed Palantir through its first decade as a public company, and the bear case at 120 times forward earnings rests on it. Citi’s $250, Barclays’ $265 and the four other targets at $230 or above rest on the counter-argument: that AIP turned the engineer’s work into reusable software, that the Fujitsu-style partner channel adds deployment capacity Palantir does not pay for, and that US commercial revenue growing 149 percent in Q2 is what a model that scales looks like. Gartner itself argued in January that rivals should copy the model. The 2 November print settles it one quarter at a time: Motley Fool’s Keithen Drury notes a beat is priced in, so the stock needs growth to accelerate from 83 percent guided, not merely to clear the bar.
Palantir stock scenarios into the 2 November print
| Scenario | Level | What has to happen | Anchor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bear | $184 | The AI financing selloff resumes and spreads back into software as it did on 16 October; Palantir retests the level that held last week. | The 50-day moving average of $183.96 (MarketBeat), which the 16 October low of $186.03 bounced from. About 6 percent below the premarket price. |
| Base | $190-$203 | The stock holds the earnings-week range on index-driven moves and no new company news before the print. | Monday’s $189.88 session low to Wednesday’s $201.72 close, bracketing the MarketBeat $203.45 and StockAnalysis $206.43 consensus targets. |
| Bull | $213 | Nasdaq buyers return before the print and pre-earnings positioning pushes the stock back to its record. | The 52-week and all-time high of $212.94 (StockAnalysis), 8.8 percent above the premarket price, and the TipRanks consensus of $212.33. |
The bear case sits below the current price. These are reference levels from the verified quotes and the published targets, not forecasts, and FinanceFeeds’ arithmetic rather than any analyst’s number.
What to watch on Friday
- $192.60: last Tuesday’s close, the level before Wednesday’s Citi rally; the stock is $3 above it premarket.
- $189.88: Monday’s session low and the floor of the earnings-week range.
- The neoclouds: whether CoreWeave and Nebius bounce from their 2026 lows decides whether Thursday was a one-day financing scare or a second leg of 16 October.
- Index futures into the open: Nasdaq 100 futures were down 0.3 percent at 09:00 ET with Meta, Nvidia and AMD recovering; a flat open leaves Palantir trading its own range.
Quick take: Palantir fell 2.74 percent to $196.19 on Thursday in a 2.6 percent Nasdaq selloff driven by AI financing worries, on half its usual volume, and is flat premarket at $195.65. The week’s Palantir argument is Gartner’s warning on scaling forward-deployed AI against Citi’s $250 target, and the 2 November print settles it. Expect $190-$203 until then. A renewed selloff opens $184. A pre-earnings bid opens $213.
FAQ
What is Palantir’s stock price today?
$195.65 in premarket trading at 09:07 ET on 23 October 2026, down 0.28 percent, after a Thursday close of $196.19 (StockAnalysis).
Why did Palantir stock fall on 22 October?
The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.6 percent on worries about how AI infrastructure is financed, after Meta raised its capex guidance and created a class of non-voting stock and CoreWeave fell 10 percent. Palantir fell 2.74 percent on volume 46 percent below average, in line with the index rather than on company news (Motley Fool, MarketBeat).
What did Gartner say about Palantir?
Motley Fool reported on 22 October that Gartner has warned about the scalability of forward-deployed AI, the engineer-led deployment model Palantir uses. Gartner’s January 2026 research separately argued that service providers should adopt the Palantir FDE model (Motley Fool, Gartner).
What is the Palantir price target?
Citi $250, Barclays $265, Baird $250, DA Davidson $250, Mizuho $245, Piper Sandler $231, Goldman Sachs $230. The consensus is $203.45 at MarketBeat, $206.43 at StockAnalysis and $212.33 at TipRanks.
When does Palantir report Q3 2026 earnings?
Monday 2 November 2026 after the US close, with the webcast at 5:00 p.m. ET. Guidance is revenue of $2.160-$2.164 billion (Palantir).
Is Palantir overvalued?
It trades at a trailing P/E of 167.68 and roughly 120 times forward earnings, against about 30 times trailing for big tech. The bulls argue 83-96 percent revenue growth and a 55 percent margin justify it; Motley Fool’s Keithen Drury argues a beat is already priced in and growth must accelerate (MarketBeat, Motley Fool).
Sources: StockAnalysis (close, day’s range, premarket quote at 09:07 ET, market cap, 52-week range, consensus target, 22-23 October 2026); MarketBeat (volume, P/E, PEG, beta, moving averages, consensus and rating counts, insider sales, Q2 results, 22 October); Motley Fool (Gartner warning via Rick Orford; Q3 guidance, growth math and valuation via Keithen Drury; index closes; 22 October); Gartner abstract (January 2026 FDE research); Opening Bell Daily and Yahoo Finance (CoreWeave, IREN, Nebius, Meta and SpaceX moves, Friday futures at 09:00 ET); TipRanks and Benzinga (Citi target, ARK sales, consensus); Palantir release via Business Wire (Q3 date, 12 October).
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Stock prices are volatile. Do your own research and consult a licensed financial adviser before making investment decisions.
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