Palantir Technologies (PLTR) grew revenue faster over the past twelve months than every company in its peer group, and only one company in that group earns a wider operating margin. Palantir also carries the group’s highest earnings multiple. Over those same twelve months the stock returned less than the S&P 500. The operational lead is evident, but current market valuations appear to price in much of that outperformance.
How Much Are You Paying For Palantir’s Growth?
Palantir trades at 140.2 times earnings. Alphabet (GOOGL) is the sharpest contrast in the group: it trades at 17.3 times earnings. Alphabet grew revenue 20.1% over the past twelve months, against 78.9% at Palantir.
| PLTR | MSFT | AMZN | GOOGL | IBM | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market Cap ($ Bil) | 422.9 | 3,696.3 | 2,705.1 | 4,220.4 | 223.8 |
| PE Ratio | 140.2 | 27.6 | 20.0 | 17.3 | 20.9 |
| LTM Revenue Growth | 78.9% | 17.8% | 15.8% | 20.1% | 7.9% |
| LTM Operating Margin | 42.8% | 46.8% | 12.1% | 33.1% | 18.4% |
| 12M Stock Return | 3.5% | -1.4% | 7.3% | 38.6% | -5.3% |
Now look at how each one did for holders over the same year. Alphabet returned 38.6% over those twelve months, against 3.5% for Palantir and 17.0% for the S&P 500. The faster-growing business was the weaker holding over that year. Against the whole group the record is milder: Palantir’s twelve-month return ranks third of the five.
This was not a quality problem. Palantir earns a 42.8% operating margin, second-widest of the five. A multiple that high leaves little room for anything short of a business its peers cannot copy.
What Is Palantir Actually Selling Its Customers?
Palantir sells platforms including Foundry and AIP, and the pitch behind them is ownership. Customers keep their data and the models they tune inside their own security boundary, rather than hand that knowledge to an outside model provider. By the company’s own account, that is what turns a pilot into a multi-year contract.
Since the fiscal Q2 2026 report, the Army Contracting Command has awarded a prime agreement for the production of eight TITAN ground stations. Fujitsu has signed for AIP and Foundry and will help enterprises in Japan and around the world put them to work. Management says the limiting factor on turning AI into economic value is the rate of AIP deployment, which is what a partner network is for.
What Does Palantir’s Price Already Assume?
At the fiscal Q2 2026 report management raised its full-year 2026 revenue guide to about $8.15 billion, from $7.66 billion. Hitting that guide is not the bull case. It is the assumption already inside the price.
A key risk debated by market analysts is whether recent customer acceleration represents pulled-forward demand rather than purely incremental expansion. An ownership pitch lands hardest while an enterprise’s AI decision is still open. The twelve-month record above is not the whole picture: the stock has returned 34.9% over the trailing three months. That is a shorter window, and it points the other way.
The case for the business is strong. The case for the price is not. Palantir has the growth, the margin and the contracts to justify a premium in this group. What remains debated is whether the current premium leaves sufficient margin of safety for incoming investors. If you would rather score that the same way across every stock, our five-factor scorecard ranks growth, profitability, stability, resilience and valuation together.
The Best Stock In The Group Is Still A Single Stock
Ranking a company against its peers sharpens the picture, and whichever name wins is still a single stock. Concentration tends to arrive by accident rather than by decision. What your largest position would do to your net worth is exactly what the Trefis Wealth team computes, with the same rules-based systematic discipline that runs our High Quality Portfolio. Request a free vulnerability audit of your biggest positions.
