Sports · Sun Belt Post
Shares of Palantir Technologies ( PLTR +0.28% ) ended at a record $209.05 on Oct. 9. At roughly $198 as I write, they're about 5% under that peak. The artificial intelligence (AI) software specialist's second-quarter revenue grew 93% year over year to about $1.94 billion.
And management now expects about $8.15 billion in revenue for 2026, or 82% more than last year. At this rate, a $10 billion year isn't far away. Palantir's revenue for its past four quarters could clear that level as early as the middle of 2027.
My prediction: when it does, Palantir stock will trade at roughly $208, almost exactly where it set its record. That'd be just about 5% above today's price, though Palantir would be taking in about 60% more revenue a year than it did in its past four reported quarters. Image source: Getty Images.
When does Palantir reach $10 billion? Palantir's growth has sped up for four straight quarters. Revenue climbed 48% year over year in the second quarter of 2025, then 63% in the third quarter, 70% in the fourth quarter, 85% in the first quarter of 2026, and 93% in the second quarter.
Net income grew even faster, more than tripling year over year to around $1.06 billion in the second quarter. Management's guidance, though, calls for growth to slow from here. Palantir sees third-quarter revenue of around $2.16 billion, or about 83% growth.
And its full-year outlook implies fourth-quarter revenue of around $2.42 billion, up about 72%. Then again, Palantir has tended to beat its own forecasts. In each of the past three quarters, revenue landed around 6% to 8% above the top of management's range.
Plus, the full-year target keeps rising. It went from around $7.19 billion in February to about $7.65 billion in May, then to around $8.15 billion in August. If the third and fourth quarters match guidance, Palantir's trailing revenue reaches $10 billion when its first-half 2027 sales rise around 52% year over year.
If those two quarters beat guidance by about as much as the past three did, growth in the mid-40s would do it. Either way, the milestone would probably show up in Palantir's second-quarter 2027 report. Investors are paying less for each dollar of sales Palantir's market value of around $477 billion comes out to about 77 times its revenue in the past four reported quarters.
A year ago, the price-to-sales multiple was about 128 times sales. The sales multiple fell by around 40% in a stretch when revenue growth almost doubled. Put simply, investors paid a bit more for the business overall but far less for each dollar it took in.
The shares gained around 7% in that year, while trailing revenue grew about 79%. I'll assume the sales multiple keeps falling at about that rate, hitting 50 times sales by the middle of 2027. Fifty times sales is still a rich price for any software company.
But I think it's a fair one for a business that, if guidance holds, would be growing slower than it is now. The stock could end up right back at its record At 50 times sales, $10 billion of yearly revenue supports a market value of about $500 billion. Divide it by the 2.4 billion shares Palantir reported outstanding in its last quarterly filing, and you get about $208 a share.
From today's price of roughly $198, that is a return of about 6% a year, if the stock gets there around August 2027. PLTR Palantir Technologies $196.75 +$0.56 (+0.28%) NASDAQ · As of 4:00 PM ET 10/23/26 That estimate also fits with the price where I'd consider buying Palantir stock -- about $140, or about 120 times its earnings in the last year. If Palantir keeps turning about half its revenue into net income, as it did in the past four quarters, $208 would be about 110 times earnings by mid-2027.
In that case, the stock would be cheaper by my measure than it is now, even at a slightly higher price. The bigger risk is that the sales multiple falls faster than I think, if growth slows more sharply than guidance implies. The stock shed around 34% of its value over the first half of 2026 alone.
And that risk is why 6% a year looks thin to me. The company could reach $10 billion within a year or so. But at about $198, I think investors are already paying for most of that growth.
I'm happy to let the revenue catch up with the price first.
Source: The Motley Fool
