What Happened?

Shares of data-mining and analytics company Palantir (NYSE:PLTR) fell 9.3% in the afternoon session as markets tumbled after holding steady the previous day, while concerns over the ongoing trade war continued to spread. 

Investors briefly felt some optimism after the Trump administration said it would hold off on tariffs for automakers that met USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) rules. That helped the auto sector in particular, and there was perhaps some hope that the door was open to more broadly delaying tariffs. The sentiment seemed to be shifting in the other direction today, and the market is in 'risk-off' mode, with sectors such as tech seeing outsized declines. As of this writing, the S&P 500 had fallen 7% from where it closed on February 19th and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 10% over the same period.

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What The Market Is Telling Us

Palantir’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 32 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business. 

The previous big move we wrote about was 3 days ago when the stock gained 5.6% on the news that Wedbush analysts reaffirmed their Buy rating, suggesting they were unshaken in their resolve, after the company appeared to have surrendered most of its post-earnings (Q4 2024) stock gains amid worries about government budget cuts. The analysts highlighted Palantir's ability to win a bigger share of the remaining pie, citing its AI capabilities and involvement in key military projects.

Palantir is up 8% since the beginning of the year, but at $81.20 per share, it is still trading 34.8% below its 52-week high of $124.62 from February 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Palantir’s shares at the IPO in September 2020 would now be looking at an investment worth $8,549.

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