By Kit Norton
Palantir Technologies stock surged on Monday -- and then came right back down on Tuesday. Shares keep hitting a key level of resistance that is proving to be difficult to overcome.
Shares advanced 6.7% to $160.84 to start the week, closing slightly below their 200-day moving average. Today, the stock is down 5.1% to $152.73, retracing toward its 50-day moving average.
Coming into this morning's trading, Palantir shares have gained 17% since the U.S.-Iran war began. Despite that jump, Palantir has been trading right around its 50-day moving average of $150.50 for much of March, failing to reclaim the 200-day line of $163.30 since closing below that level on Jan. 28.
After three straight years of mammoth gains, this year has been a rocky one for Palantir, with shares down nearly 10%. Palantir stock gained 135% in 2025, 340% in 2024, and 167% in 2023.
Wall Street appears to be weighing the bullish and bearish cases for shares. Palantir has momentum as a defense technology provider during a period of increased military spending and war. The more bearish view is that Palantir's premium valuation is too high compared to other software companies.
However, additional deals with the U.S. government are certainly a positive, according to analysts. Reuters reported over the weekend that the U.S. Department of Defense plans to make the company's Maven digital battle-management system an official program of record. The technology provides intelligence, target recognition, battle space awareness, and decision-making capabilities.
Palantir referred Barron's to the Defense Department for comment on the Reuters report. The Defense Department declined to comment on the matter.
Wedbush Securities analysts, led by Dan Ives, wrote Sunday that the deal marks "another significant" milestone for Palantir, positioning the company as one of the main providers and beneficiaries of the Trump administration's AI investments. Wedbush Securities has an Outperform rating and a $230 price target on Palantir.
Wedbush also noted that the deal comes less than a year after Palantir won the Maven Smart System contract in May 2025 for about $1.3 billion to assist the Defense Department with data fusion and target identification.
Last year, Palantir also won a contract worth up to $10 billion with the U.S. Army, plus a $448 million deal with the Navy.
"We continue to believe that PLTR will gain more deals across the federal government," Wedbush Securities analysts wrote Sunday. Write to Kit Norton at kit.norton@barrons.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 24, 2026 12:08 ET (16:08 GMT)
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