New York, March 2, 2026, 04:57 EST — Premarket
- Palantir shares were up 4% in premarket trade after closing Friday up 0.9%.
- UBS upgraded Palantir to “Buy” and kept a $180 target after a pullback from the peak.
- Traders are bracing for Friday’s U.S. jobs report and more AI-linked volatility.
Palantir Technologies (PLTR.O) shares rose 4% in premarket trading on Monday to $142.73, after ending Friday up 0.9% at $137.19. 1
The move keeps the data-analytics group in the spotlight after UBS upgraded the stock to “Buy” and argued the pullback made the valuation easier to defend. UBS analyst Karl Keirstead called the stock’s retreat “-35% move off the peak” and said a partner described conditions as “demand is exceptional.” 2
Why now: investors are trying to sort “AI winners” from the rest of software, a debate that has whipped big tech and high-multiple names this year. The next test is macro — a week packed with data and earnings, with the February U.S. jobs report looming as a key swing factor for rate expectations. 3
Palantir’s last quarterly update in early February leaned heavily on government demand and a surge in U.S. commercial revenue, helping justify a premium valuation that has also made the stock prone to sharp reversals. The company posted quarterly revenue of $1.41 billion and U.S. government revenue of $570 million, Reuters reported at the time. 4
In its earnings release, Palantir forecast full-year 2026 revenue of $7.182 billion to $7.198 billion and said it expected U.S. commercial revenue to top $3.144 billion, a growth rate of at least 115%. 5
UBS’ bull case leans on free cash flow — the cash left after operating costs and capital spending — and on the idea that Palantir can keep growing at roughly 50% a year for several years. The bank also flagged competition from the largest cloud firms and specialists such as Databricks, but said its latest checks did not show “material” new threats. 2
The backdrop is messy. Oil has surged after a sharp escalation in the Middle East, and that kind of shock tends to hit risk appetite even when a single stock has its own story. 6
But Palantir still trades like a high-expectations name. Any slip in deal momentum, slower government buying, or a sharper pullback in enterprise tech budgets could land harder than it would for cheaper software peers.
The week ahead offers plenty of cross-currents: rate-sensitive growth stocks have been reacting to every turn in the data, while investors keep asking how fast AI spending converts into revenue for software vendors, not just chipmakers.
The next clear market catalyst is Friday’s U.S. Employment Situation report for February, due March 6 at 8:30 a.m. ET — a print that could swing yields, tech sentiment and the tone for names like Palantir into the next session. 7
