Palantir value now tops McDonalds’s, IBM, and Amex

Here’s a quick bit of context on Palantir’s remarkable surge this week, after posting strong Q4 numbers Monday. The stock is up nearly 7% again today and is up more than 30% for the week, shortly before 1:30 p.m. ET.

Even before today’s pop, that price surge created about $55 billion in market value — which is also shareholder wealth — and pushed the company’s market cap up to $245.16 billion as of yesterday’s close, according to FactSet.

That means the market is now valuing Palantir, which has only been in the black for two years, at the same level as Corporate America icons like IBM, McDonald’s, and American Express, to name a few.

There remains plenty of skepticism about the valuation Palantir is getting. It’s possible we look back and this is a high-water mark of sorts for the company amid the AI hype of the moment. After all, during a similar period of manic retail trading in March 2000, Cisco briefly became the world’s most valuable company.

On the other hand, it’s also possible we’re seeing the emergence of a genuine new American industrial titan. And anybody who claims they can tell you which it is, is probably lying or guessing.