Analysts respond to Palantir's entry into the S&P 500

So did it or didn't it?

Stories that Palantir Technologies (PLTR) helped locate Osama bin Encumbered have been circulating for kind of ages.

Related: Three hot stocks — one a surprise — will join S&P five hundred

Within the book "The Finish," detailing the killing of bin Encumbered, author Mark Bowden wrote that Palantir's software “in point of fact deserves the favored designation Killer App.”

The info-analytics company's tech also helped locate Mexican drug cartel members who murdered an American customs agent, and it tracked down hackers who installed spyware on the computer of the Dalai Lama.

Gen. David Petraeus, director of the CIA under President Barack Obama, described Palantir to Forbes in 2013 as "a stronger mousetrap when a stronger mousetrap became needed" and CEO Alex Karp as "sheer brilliant."

But about bin Encumbered...?

When the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd asked Karp whether the corporate had indeed played a job in locating the architect of the September 11 attacks, he said that “if when you've gotten got a reputation for talking about what the pope says while you meet him, you’ll never meet the pope again.”

He added that without Palantir's software, “’ve had massive terror attacks in Europe already, like Oct. 7 style," referring to the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Palantir posts record profit

This will well be a good time to be Palantir.

The Denver data-analytics company, which has been trading publicly simplest for the past four years, saw its stock surge some 12% on Sept. 9 on news that the group will be added to the S&P five hundred.

S&P Dow Jones Indices said Palantir, Dell Technologies (DELL) and Erie Indemnity (ERIE) would join the broadest list of U.S. blue-chip shares on Sept. 23. American Airlines (AAL) , Etsy (ETSY) and Bio-Rad Laboratories (BIO) will join the mid-cap S&P four hundred index.

Related: Palantir stock surges on huge S&P five hundred decision

Founded in 2003 by Karp, billionaire investor Peter Thiel, and Stephen Cohen, the corporate's name comes from the “seeing stones” in J.R.R. Tolkien’s "Lord of the Rings." These were indestructible balls of crystal used for conversation and to see events in other parts of the arena.

"We were founded in 2003 and started building software for the intelligence community in the United States to help in counterterrorism investigations and operations," the corporate said in a regulatory filing.

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"We later began working with commercial enterprises, who often faced fundamentally similar challenges in working with data," the filing said.

Critics have complained about Palantir’s work at the border, which helped U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement track down undocumented migrants for deportation.

In 2019, about 70 demonstrators blocked get right of entry to to the cafeteria outside the Palo Alto place of business, shouting “Immigrants are welcome here, time to cancel Palantir.”

In the same way, Thiel is backing former President Donald Trump in the November election, and Karp said he told the billionaire "or not it might probably perhaps well be now now not making our life simpler."

Palantir, which does now now not do business with China, Russia or other countries that oppose the West, posted record quarterly profit last month. Sales rose 27% thanks in part to surging demand for its AIP Common sense platform, which tests and improves AI-related strategies.

Investing veteran 'banging the table' for Palantir

Karp said in his letter to shareholders that "every section of our organization is bothered with the rollout of AIP, which has long gone from a prototype to a product in months."

The demand for big language models from commercial institutions in the U.S., he said, "is still unrelenting." LLMs are models, trained on data, remember and generate language and perform tasks.

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"This will well be a good important time for Palantir because now we have proven to the arena that what we do is quantifiable and real," Karp told analysts all over the corporate's earnings call. "We're concerned with growing this company to be so much more impactful, a lot larger, and so much more valuable."

"We know that a full lot of you also support us since you realize that we're value-aligned with your values, which implies that being affected by to make the West a stronger and better place, including on the battlefield," he added.

Among those staunchly supporting the corporate is TheStreet Pro's Stephen Guilfoyle.

"I've got been pounding the table for Palantir for kind of your time," he said "The 'Stocks Less than $10' portfolio became long the shares with a mid-single-digits net basis. Once that product became terminated as a stand-by myself offering and I used to be once allowed to own the shares of portfolio stocks in my very own accounts, PLTR became the primary name I purchased for myself, with a $16 take care of."

Wedbush's Dan Ives on Palantir

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the corporate's addition to the S&P five hundred is a moment that Palantir investors "have been anxiously expecting over the past year because the profitability profile of this story has significantly been bolstered with this, every other validation moment for the Palantir story."

"We take into consideration many skeptics of Palantir have underestimated the profitability and cash float potential of Palantir with Man made Intelligence Platform and the United States commercial business a core driver of the business model going forward," he said.

AIP has been in a position to expose its customers tips on tips to work through specific tasks that require Al and enable it to propose and undertake real-world actions moreover, said Ives, who maintained his outperform rating and $38 price target on the shares.

The analyst said or not it might probably perhaps well be also liable to spur a multiyear cycle for deals, as more companies in search of out Al capabilities that offer value and innovation, something Palantir's AlP may also help with.

"In a nutshell, getting added to the S&P five hundred Index is a a should-have moment in the Palantir story that we take into consideration marks a brand new era of enterprise growth and profitability over the following few years," Ives said.

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