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Palantir is a divisive stock, with the bulls touting its sky-high score under the so-called "Rule of 40," which posits that a company is healthy if its growth rate plus profit margin either equals or exceeds 40 percent, while the bears continue to hammer on the stock's stratospheric valuation, though to be fair, the recent selloff has done much to reduce these valuation concerns.
Given the wide gamut of views on Palantir that populate Wall Street, it is hardly a surprise that analysts remain divided on the stock's near-term prospects. Today, we get to witness another such dichotomy of views on Palantir, with Jefferies adopting a bearish tone while William Blair going all-in on the stock.
To wit, Jefferies analyst Brent Thill has maintained an 'Underperform' rating for Palantir shares. Thill notes that "insider selling on 10b5-1 plans has resumed in 2025, with the CEO selling another $45M in shares, offloading nearly 21% of his overall stake in the last 6 months."
As we noted previously, Palantir has now changed the compensation plan of its CEO, Alex Karp, allowing him to sell up to 9.975 million shares (worth ~$841 million right now) through the 12th of September 2025. Bear in mind that Karp's earlier plan had allowed for the sale of 48.9 million shares.
On the stock's moderating valuation, Thill notes:
"After peaking at 61x CY26 rev, PLTR's multiple has quickly compressed by 36% to 39x but is still ~2x the next-highest software name. Given how other big multiple stories have traded post peak, we think there is more multiple contraction to come."
On the flip side, William Blair analyst Louie DiPalma is much more bullish on Palantir now, having upgraded the stock from an 'Underperform' to a 'Market Perform' rating.
DiPalma cites Palantir's "33% DOGE-driven selloff" as the major stimulus behind this upgrade. For the benefit of those who might not be aware, Palantir shares were recently left with visible bruises after the US Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered Pentagon officials to develop a new budget that would cut defense spending by 8 percent annually. Given Palantir's outsized reliance on government contracts, this spending retrenchment emerged as a negative catalyst for the stock.
While DiPalma concedes that "valuation is still frothy with potential downside risk of greater than 40% on government contract delays," he thinks Palantir shares can quickly reclaim their previous zenith should the market revert to its "risk-on mode." On balance though, the analyst feels that the stock will remain "range-bound over the next year with continued elevated volatility given the puts and takes. A government shutdown on March 15 may cause further downside pressure."
Meanwhile, Wedbush's Dan Ives now views the ongoing weakness in Palantir shares as a buying opportunity, going on to predict that Palantir "could be a trillion market cap over the coming years and shaping up to be the next Oracle or Salesforce as the AI Revolution plays out."
About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.
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