Palantir Defies Wall Street Warnings, Retail Investors Fuel Rapid Growth

As of September 9th, 2025, Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR) has emerged as one of the most widely owned stocks among retail investors, despite its position outside the top 25 U.S.-listed companies by market capitalization. The company's stock has returned over 106% so far this year, with retail investors being the primary driving force behind this momentum.

Wall Street analysts have been warning retail investors for months that Palantir's current stock price is unsupportable, but the stock continues to rise. This has only made analysts more bearish, with just 7 out of 29 analysts rating the stock as a buy or equivalent as of the current date.

However, Palantir has been leveraging its generative artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to fuel the growth of its commercial business, while also winning increasingly large contracts from the government. The company's Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP), released in 2023, has been a significant growth driver for its U.S. commercial business, allowing less technical users to harness the power of Palantir's data ontology software.

The financial results speak for themselves, with Palantir reporting a 48% increase in sales in its most recent quarter, including a 93% jump in U.S. commercial revenue. This growth has come with an expansion of the company's adjusted operating margin to 46%, up from 44% in the previous quarter. As a result, Palantir's Rule of 40 score, the sum of its revenue growth rate and operating margin, now stands at 94.

Retail investors have been enthusiastic about Palantir's performance, as the company continues to demonstrate rapid revenue growth, profitability, and operating leverage as it scales. While Wall Street analysts believe the company's valuation has reached unsupportable levels, the retail investor community remains undeterred, driving the stock's continued rise.