Palantir Stock (PLTR): Government vs Commercial, Profit and Valuation in Numbers

Michael Whitman · Trading since 2017, full-time since 2020 · YouTube creator, 137K subscribers · Published 2026-11-07 · Updated 2026-11-08

Palantir stock trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker PLTR. The company sells data and AI software, first built for intelligence and defense agencies and now sold just as much to businesses. Since 2020 its share price has ranged from 6.8 to 142.9 times its sales.

Quote pages show a P/E above 100 and a list of analyst targets. They do not show which customers pay the bills, when the losses turned into profits, or how the price-to-sales ratio has moved over time. We built those from Palantir’s own filings and results releases, and from every trading day since the September 2020 listing.

PLTR on November 6, 2026

Price is the November 6, 2026 close. Revenue, earnings and equity come from the 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026, filed November 3.

The stock closed at a record $209.05 on October 9, 2026. From October 27 it fell for eight straight sessions, to $154.99 on November 5, a 9.73% drop that last day alone. It rose 3.48% on November 6 and ended 23.3% below the record. For 2026 to date PLTR was down 9.8%, against a 7.8% rise in the S&P 500 and a 6.4% fall in IGV, a fund of software stocks.

How it works: one software platform, two kinds of buyer

What it sells. Palantir licenses software platforms, among them Gotham for government users, Foundry for companies, and AIP, which puts AI models to work on a customer’s own data. Revenue comes from subscriptions and contracts.

Two segments. The 10-K defines the government segment as serving U.S. and non-U.S. government agencies, and the commercial segment as everyone else. Both now bring in a little over $1.1 billion a quarter.

America first. U.S. customers paid 83.7% of revenue in the quarter to September 30, 2026, up from 47.9% in the first quarter of 2020. The rest of the world has grown far more slowly.

Who controls it. Class A shares carry one vote and Class B shares ten. Class F shares, held in a voting trust by founders Stephen Cohen, Alexander Karp and Peter Thiel, can give them up to 49.999999% of the total voting power, so public holders own most of the company without controlling it.

Government vs commercial at Palantir

The early split. In 2019, before the listing, commercial revenue was $397.0 million and government $345.5 million. The pandemic years flipped that: by the quarter to June 30, 2021, commercial was down to 38.2% of revenue.

The climb back. Commercial’s share rose to 45.8% in early 2022, stayed between 42.4% and 48.8% through mid 2026, and reached 50.5% in the quarter to September 30, 2026. That is the first quarter in our 27-quarter series in which commercial customers paid more than government ones.

The U.S. commercial line. Since the last quarter of 2022 each results release has given U.S. commercial revenue in dollars. It was $77 million then, 15.1% of revenue, and $984 million in the quarter to September 30, 2026, 42.5% of revenue and up 148% from a year earlier. In that release Palantir said U.S. commercial revenue had passed U.S. government revenue, $953 million, for the first time.

Government is still growing fast. Government revenue rose 81.1% from a year earlier, to $1.15 billion. Commercial rose 113.0%. The shift in share comes from both lines growing, one faster.

From losses to GAAP profit, and the index doors it opened

The loss years. Palantir lost money under standard accounting (GAAP) in each of the 11 quarters from early 2020 to September 2022, including $853.3 million in the quarter of its listing. Stock-based pay was $1.27 billion in 2020, 116.3% of revenue.

The turn. The quarter to December 31, 2022 showed net income of $30.9 million, which the results release called the company’s first quarter of positive GAAP net income. Every quarter since has been profitable, 16 in a row, and the latest brought in $1.13 billion. Stock-based pay fell to 15.3% of revenue in 2025 and to 13.5% over the last twelve months.

The index steps. The S&P 500 counts reported profits among its entry rules. On September 6, 2024, S&P Dow Jones Indices said Palantir would replace American Airlines before the open on September 23. PLTR rose 14.08% on the next trading day.

Two more moves. Palantir then moved its listing from the NYSE to the Nasdaq on November 26, 2024, and joined the Nasdaq-100 on December 23, 2024. From the last close before S&P 500 entry to November 6, 2026 the stock rose 331.1%, against 29.4% for the index. Our S&P 500 page covers how the index is built.

The original data: 27 quarters of revenue and 1,502 days of price-to-sales

Revenue and profit by quarter. We read the XBRL data in every 10-Q and 10-K Palantir filed from November 2020 to November 2026 and took revenue by segment, U.S. revenue and net income for each quarter, as first reported. Fourth quarters are the year minus the first nine months, and the first two quarters of 2020 come from the comparison columns of the 2021 10-Qs.

What the 27 quarters show:

• Size. Revenue was $229.3 million in the first quarter of 2020 and $2.31 billion in the third quarter of 2026, 10.1 times as much. Growth from a year earlier bottomed at 12.7% in the quarter to June 30, 2023 and has risen in each of the 13 quarters since, to 95.9%.
• Profit followed revenue. Net margin was 6.1% in the first profitable quarter and 48.8% in the latest.

Price-to-sales as known on each day. For every trading day from November 13, 2020, the day the first 10-Q came out, we multiplied the close by the share count on the cover of the latest filing and divided by the trailing revenue in that same filing. This is our own definition; quote sites update their figures on their own schedules.

• First peak. 67.9x on January 27, 2021, the record close of the early run at $39.00.
• The bottom. 6.8x on December 27, 2022, when the stock closed at $6.00, its lowest close since the listing.
• The top. 142.9x on November 3, 2025, the day the stock closed at $207.18. Third-quarter results came out after that close, so the ratio still used revenue to June 30.
• Now. 53.0x on November 6, 2026. A year earlier, on November 6, 2025, the stock closed at $175.05 and the ratio was 107.1x. The price is 8.4% lower and trailing revenue has grown, so the ratio has roughly halved.

What results day does to the price. For each of the 25 quarterly releases since November 12, 2020 we took the close before the news and the close after it. Nine came before the open, eight of them in 2021 and 2022 and one in November 2023; the other 16 came after the close.

• Size. The median move was 12.05% either way, 5.8 times the 2.08% median on the other 1,477 sessions. 24 of the 25 moved 5% or more and 16 moved 10% or more.
• Direction. 13 up and 12 down, against 50.6% up on other sessions: no tilt either way.
• Extremes. The biggest rise was 30.80% on February 6, 2024. The deepest fall was 21.31% on May 9, 2022. The November 2, 2026 report, with revenue up 95.9%, was followed by a 1.65% fall.

The deepest falls. From the record close on January 27, 2021, PLTR fell 84.6% to December 27, 2022 and did not close above $39.00 again until October 3, 2024. It fell 40.6% from February 18 to April 4, 2025, and 48.2% from November 3, 2025 to June 25, 2026, before setting a new record on October 9, 2026. Calendar-year price changes were −22.7% in 2021, −64.7% in 2022, +167.4% in 2023, +340.5% in 2024 and +135.0% in 2025. See drawdown for the measure.

Download the data: Palantir revenue by segment and profit, Palantir daily price-to-sales and Palantir earnings-day moves. You can reuse any of them if you credit this page and link to it; the terms are in our site license.

A worked example: from share count to a 112.9 P/E

All inputs come from Palantir’s XBRL filings except the share price.

1. Shares. The 10-Q cover lists 2,306,705,341 Class A, 101,787,133 Class B and 1,005,000 Class F shares on October 26, 2026, a total of 2,409,497,474. Every class shares equally in earnings, so all three count.
2. Market value. $160.38 × 2,409,497,474 = $386.4 billion.
3. Trailing revenue. $5.88 billion for the nine months to September 30, 2026, plus $4.48 billion for 2025, minus $3.07 billion for the nine months to September 30, 2025, gives $7.29 billion. $386.4 billion ÷ $7.29 billion = 53.0.
4. Trailing earnings. Diluted EPS was $1.19 for the nine months, $0.63 for 2025 and $0.40 for the nine months a year earlier: $1.19 + $0.63 − $0.40 = $1.42. $160.38 ÷ $1.42 = 112.9.
5. What the multiple means. At 112.9x, a buyer pays $112.90 for each $1 of the last year’s earnings, an earnings yield of 0.89%. Our P/E ratio page explains the measure, and earnings per share covers the inputs.

When it fails: a price that runs ahead of the profit

The multiple can shrink fast. In 2022 revenue grew 23.6% and the stock still fell 64.7%, because the price-to-sales ratio dropped from 25.5x at the end of 2021 to 7.3x at the end of 2022. Growth did not protect the price when the multiple fell.

Good results do not guarantee a good day. The November 2, 2026 report showed the fastest growth in the series and the stock fell 1.65% the next day, the sixth day of an eight-session slide. Twelve of the 25 reports were followed by a fall.

Government contracts can change. About half of revenue comes from government agencies, and spending decisions by a few of them move a large part of the total. Separately, one customer the 10-K calls only “Customer I” made up 25% of accounts receivable on December 31, 2025; the filing does not say which segment it belongs to.

Control stays with the founders. The Class F structure lets three founders hold up to 49.999999% of the vote, so outside shareholders have limited say over the board and strategy.

These numbers age fast. The price-to-sales ratio, the P/E and the segment split change with every trade and every filing. Last year’s fourth-quarter results came out on February 2, 2026.

Questions people ask

What is the PLTR ticker?

PLTR, on the Nasdaq since November 26, 2024. Before that it traded on the NYSE, where it listed on September 30, 2020 through a direct listing and closed its first day at $9.50.

What is Palantir’s market cap?

About $386.4 billion at the November 6, 2026 close of $160.38, counting all three share classes on the cover of the November 2026 10-Q. Our market cap page explains the measure.

Does Palantir pay a dividend?

No. The 10-Q shows no dividend declared or payable, and the company has not paid one since listing. Its return to holders has come only through the share price.

Why is Palantir’s P/E so high?

Because the share price sits far above one year’s profit. Earnings were $1.42 a share over the last year, and the stock at $160.38 is 112.9 times that. A year of 95.9% revenue growth has brought the price-to-sales ratio down from its 142.9x peak, but it is still 53.0x. Our revenue page explains why a multiple of sales says little on its own about what a company keeps.

When did Palantir join the S&P 500?

Before the open on September 23, 2024, replacing American Airlines, after an announcement on September 6. It joined the Nasdaq-100 on December 23, 2024.

Related

Why a multiple of sales needs care is on revenue, and how a normal listing works, as opposed to Palantir’s direct listing, is on IPO. For two other large AI names built the same way from their filings, see Nvidia stock and Microsoft stock. If you own Palantir through an index fund, index funds explains how much of each fund it can be, and stock buybacks covers the opposite of the share growth Palantir’s stock awards create.

This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money.