Palantir Technologies Inc (NYSE:PLTR) stock is up 6.5% to trade at $24.85 at last check, thanks to a price-target hike to $23 from $20 at Citigroup. The bull note comes ahead of the software company's first-quarter earnings report, due out after the market closes today.
PLTR is 43.8% higher in 2024, and is trading at its highest level in over a month today. The shares are not far off their March 4 nearly three-year high of $27.50, and have support in place at their upward-sloping 80-day moving average. Year-over-year, the equity is up 234%.
A big chunk of those gains are attributed to post-earnings bull gaps. Palantir has a volatile history of post-earnings reactions, gapping higher by 30.8% after the February report, but also shedding 10.5% after its August report. Overall, the stock averages a post-earnings move of 17.2%, regardless of direction. This time around, for Tuesday's trading, the options market is pricing in a larger-than-expected post-earnings move of 21.4%.
For a stock with all these healthy gains over various timeframes, the analyst community has been awfully slow to react. Of the 14 brokerages covering PLTR, 11 still maintain "hold" or worse ratings. And considering the consensus 12-month price target of $20.87 is a 15.7% discount from the stock's current perch, another encouraging earnings report could prompt more bull notes this week.
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