During today's afternoon trading session, Palantir Technologies plummeted to $14.75 per share. It's still 5.06% above its mean target price of $14.04, so there may still be room for more downwards movement -- even after today's -9.7% drop. Analysts are giving the Information Technology stock on average rating of hold, with target prices ranging from 5.0 to 25.0 dollars per share.
Palantir Technologies's short interest can give us an idea of what future price movements the market expects from the stock. The short interest is the percentage of shares that are tied up in short positions, which will provide gains to the investor only if the stock price falls. The stock's short interest is 7.2% which seems to indicate a mixed sentiment on PALANTIR TECHNOLOGIES
Short selling involves borrowing shares and then selling them at current market prices. In the successful version of the strategy, the shares are purchased at a lower price at some time in the future. The investor then returns the shares to the lender, and keeps the profit made on the sell/buy transaction.
A possible indicator of market sentiment on a stock (besides its share price, of course) is the portion of institutional investors that make up its shareholders. Institutions such as banks, hedge funds, and wealth managers deploy significant resources towards identifying good investments. If they are invested heavily in a given company's stock, it could mean it's a good investment. Or it could mean the company is being targeted by a takeover attempt.
For what it's worth, institutions own 35.3% of Palantir Technologies's shares, which is an average amount. It means that many institutions are invested, but not to the extent that they would be in a stock such as Apple or Amazon, whose institutional ownership rates hover around 60%. Bear in mind that institutional ownership is just one piece of the puzzle in determining market sentiment, and you should not consider this factor alone in making an investment decision.
Overall, there is mixed market sentiment towards Palantir Technologies because of an analyst consensus of little upside potential, a hold rating, an average amount of shares sold short, and only a small number of institutional investors. Investors should not base their decisions on market sentiment only, they should also be aware of a stock's fundamentals before committing.
At a glance, here are some essential statistics you may want to know about PLTR:
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It has trailing 12 month earnings per share (EPS) of $-0.02 per share
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Palantir Technologies has a trailing 12 month Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio of -737.5 while the S&P 500 average is 15.97
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The company has a Price to Book (P/B) ratio of 10.73 in contrast to the S&P 500's average ratio of 2.95
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Palantir Technologies is a Technology company, and the sector average P/E and P/B ratios are 27.16 and 6.23 respectively
