Sopa Photos | Lightrocket | Getty Photos
Kyle Dijamco is a proud member of Palantir Applied sciences‘ fast-growing retail investor base.
The Los Angeles-based marketer has wager huge on the protection tech inventory, even rising his publicity after a drawdown earlier this yr. The 31-year-old’s place now stands at roughly $25,000.
“It is an thrilling inventory to personal,” Dijamco advised CNBC.
Dijamco is a part of a military of mom-and-pop merchants who’ve poured billions of {dollars} into the Denver-based firm’s shares in 2025, in line with knowledge from VandaTrack. Its monster positive factors over current years amid the factitious intelligence increase has made the inventory an indeniable star of the retail investing world, despite Wall Avenue’s reservations about valuation.
Particular person traders have been on monitor to purchase practically $8 billion in Palantir inventory on steadiness in 2025, per Vanda knowledge as of Dec. 8. That may be a acquire of greater than 80% over the prior yr, and it displays a rise of over 400% from 2023.
Palantir is on tempo to be the fifth-most purchased safety on steadiness for the yr, Vanda knowledge exhibits. The inventory sits behind solely megacap names like Tesla and Nvidia and well-liked exchange-traded funds such because the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Belief (SPY), which tracks the whole U.S. market benchmark.
“It has been nice,” mentioned Viraj Patel, deputy head of analysis at Vanda, which tracks retail dealer flows. ”Palantir has form of been introduced into this group of AI-tech poster [children].”
An ‘insane’ enterprise
Palantir has gained the hearts of retail traders amid its takeoff as a inventory. Its shares have surged greater than 150% to this point in 2025, inserting the identify on monitor for its third straight yr with triple-digit positive factors.
The inventory has skyrocketed practically 3,000% within the final three years, crushing the S&P 500‘s roughly 80% acquire and the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite‘s greater than 120% climb in the identical time-frame.
Palantir vs. the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite, 1-year chart
Since its 2020 market debut, Palantir has been thought-about a mysterious enterprise given its enterprise with each private and non-private entities.
On the floor degree, Palantir helps each governments and main companies manage their knowledge. Past being seen as a beneficiary of the push to undertake AI, it is seen as a winner beneath the Trump administration’s priorities of accelerating federal authorities effectivity and bolstering nationwide protection.
“The joke for some time has at all times been like, ‘What does Palantir even do?'” mentioned Paxton Earl, an funding banker with a give attention to software program who started studying regulatory experiences to higher perceive the corporate. After studying extra, he remembers pondering: “That is really an insane enterprise. It is actually good.”
Earl found by way of analysis that the corporate’s income was extra diversified past army work than he initially predicted. As well as, the 23-year-old discovered Palantir labored with consumer-facing manufacturers he knew like Ferrari and Wendy’s.
The emblem of U.S. software program firm Palantir Applied sciences is seen in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 22, 2020.
Arnd Wiegmann | Reuters
The San Diego resident mentioned he picked up extra shares following the corporate’s third-quarter earnings report in early November. Palantir tanked 16% that month as traders dumped their AI performs on valuation fears, and the inventory posted its worst month-to-month efficiency in additional than two years.
Wall Avenue largely chalked up the sell-off to profit-taking and broader issues in regards to the well being of the AI commerce. Vanda discovered the majority of Palantir’s retail shopping for befell within the first 9 months of the yr, then cooled off as rising fears of an AI bubble left traders questioning the commerce.
A retail ‘romance’
Palantir has gone out of its technique to court docket particular person merchants like Earl.
Whereas different well-known firms sometimes reserve the question-and-answer parts of earnings requires Wall Avenue analysts or journalists, Palantir additionally takes inquiries from retail traders. In an annual video shared from a ski path late final yr, CEO Alex Karp particularly shouted out these small shareholders.
“Exceedingly grateful to all of you particular person traders who took the time and alternative, and had the braveness to look previous standard, rusty, crusty platitudes,” Karp mentioned, whereas was carrying reflective goggles and gripping ski poles.
The inventory has develop into a sizzling subject on the favored WallStreetBets Reddit discussion board. On a number of days in 2025, it was essentially the most talked about inventory on the dialogue board, in line with meme inventory monitoring agency Breakout Level.
Palantir “has been a long-standing WallStreetBets romance,” mentioned Ivan Ćosović, managing director at Breakout Level. “They adore it.”
Massive cash’s hesitancy
Wall Avenue hasn’t jumped on board with the identical fervor as the typical Joe. The common analyst polled by LSEG has a maintain score, with a number of citing apprehension in regards to the inventory’s a number of.
The corporate’s valuation has made its inventory a “non-starter” for institutional purchasers, in line with Gil Luria, head of know-how analysis at D.A. Davidson. Palantir has a a number of of round 450 occasions trailing earnings, working circles across the S&P 500’s common of shut to twenty-eight.
However, Luria mentioned retail traders are probably impressed by Palantir’s “formidable” mission to play a job in defending the U.S. These on a regular basis traders are probably additionally enticed by Karp, who Luria mentioned is much like Tesla CEO Elon Musk in his skill to promote a enterprise imaginative and prescient. Nonetheless, Luria mentioned Karp hasn’t attracted the identical quantity of controversy.
Alex Karp, chief govt officer of Palantir Applied sciences Inc., speaks through the AIPCon convention in Palo Alto, California, US, on March 13, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Photos
Luria mentioned Palantir additionally attracts parallels to Tesla’s inventory 10 years in the past, when the carmaker was presenting an electrical vehicle-focused future. Tesla shares have soared about 3,000% previously decade, whereas the S&P 500 has gained greater than 230% in the identical interval.
The query, Luria mentioned, is that if the retail crowd who backed Tesla a decade in the past are proper as soon as once more about Palantir.
The analyst mentioned Palantir’s earnings outcomes have been largely sturdy during the last a number of years. Palantir’s second-quarter report in August — during which the corporate topped the Avenue’s estimates and raised its full-year steering because of the AI increase — left him questioning if the inventory is price leaping into regardless of the lofty a number of.
“Even us most jaded, previous, stodgy Wall Avenue analysts have been greatly surprised by the extent of success,” Luria mentioned. “It was such a staggering success that I needed to rethink every thing I knew.”
Scion Asset Administration — the now-de-registered fund run by “The Massive Brief” investor Michael Burry — revealed bets towards Palantir and fellow AI darling Nvidia within the third quarter. Karp advised CNBC that Burry’s transfer was “bats— loopy.”
Overvaluation or future?
Retail traders are undeterred by the wariness amongst their institutional counterparts. As Breakout Level’s Ćosović put it: the place Burry sees “overvaluation,” WallStreetBets sees “future.”
Palantir has had its fair proportion of choppiness this yr, falling greater than 10% on a number of single buying and selling days. However for stakeholders like Dijamco, the California-based marketer, these fluctuations present cheaper entry factors to purchase into a reputation that they consider in.
“You form of develop into a little bit bit desensitized to the value swings,” mentioned Dijamco, who plans to buy hundreds of {dollars}’ price of extra shares on the following huge downturn. “I simply have that conviction that it’ll do nicely.”
