摩根士丹利在1月6日的报告中对Palantir进行分析，从产品周期、政府与商业业务表现、运营效率和估值等方面进行全面剖析，并给出“低配”评级，目标价60美元/股，较当前股价有约25%的下行空间。而2026财年的企业价值/销售额为32倍，增长调整后为12倍，比同行业高出100%的溢价。Source: Wall Street News
Morgan Stanley questions the sustainability of Palantir's growth momentum, believing that Palantir's technological advantages have reached or are close to their peak at this stage. The growth prospects have also been fully reflected in the stock price, which holds a premium of 100% over its peers. Based on this, a "underweight" rating is given with a Target Price of $60 per share, indicating about a 25% downside from the current stock price.
AI数据分析商 $Palantir (PLTR.US)$ Last year, it surged by 340%, becoming a major winner in the U.S. stock market. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley sounded the alarm, lowering Palantir's rating to "underweight," warning of an imbalance between valuation premium and risk-return.
In a report on January 6, Morgan Stanley analyzed Palantir, providing a comprehensive breakdown based on product cycle, performance in government and commercial business, operational efficiency, and valuation, giving it an 'underweight' rating with a target price of $60 per share, indicating about a 25% downside from the current stock price. The enterprise value/sales for the fiscal year 2026 is 32 times, with adjusted growth at 12 times, reflecting a 100% premium compared to peers in the industry.
Morgan Stanley noted that Palantir indeed achieved better-than-expected performance over the past 18 months, with government business growth accelerating from 11% in 2023 to 27% in 2024, propelled by the AI Platform (AIP) product and the 'Bootcamp' marketing strategy, along with rapid growth in large government contracts and a slowdown in operating expense growth driving a 900 basis point increase in profit margins.
However, Morgan Stanley questions the sustainability of this growth momentum, believing that Palantir's technological advantages may have reached or are approaching their peak at this stage, and that growth prospects are already fully reflected in the stock price, with 13 key performance indicators (KPIs) experiencing a quarter-over-quarter decline in the third quarter.
Doubts about the sustainability of strong growth momentum.
Morgan Stanley pointed out that as enterprise clients enhance their own AI capabilities, Palantir's technological advantage may gradually weaken, thus affecting its current growth momentum and the sustainability of its valuation premium.
1. At the current stage, Palantir's client acquisition has reached or is close to its peak: Palantir has leading technologies in areas such as data integration, workflow orchestration, and business ontology mapping, and helps clients rapidly achieve AI production through a deployment engineer model. The attractiveness of Palantir as a partner partly stems from its relative gap/skill set in technology and human capital compared to end clients, which we believe has reached or is close to its peak at this cycle stage, potentially making it difficult for Palantir to maintain its current growth momentum.
2. Growth prospects are attractive, but they have been fully reflected in the stock price: the turning point of growth and our positive adjustments to Palantir's positioning in the generative AI cycle have been well reflected in the stock price, which increased by 340% in 2024, almost entirely driven by multiple expansions. Palantir's enterprise value/future 12-month sales multiple expanded by 292% in 2024. Due to the lack of visibility in significant estimate adjustments, Palantir's trading price far exceeds the company's intrinsic value, which is not sufficient to justify an upgrade in rating.
3. Out of 23 key performance indicators (KPIs), 13 reported a quarter-on-quarter decline: Business momentum now seems to be stabilizing rather than further improving, with 13 key performance indicators (KPIs) declining quarter-on-quarter in the third quarter, while the previous quarter saw the best rate of growth improvement.
Overall, Morgan Stanley expects that revenue/free cash flow estimates and a 3.4x enterprise value/2026 fiscal year free cash flow/growth multiple (88x enterprise value/2026 fiscal year free cash flow) - which is approximately an 80% premium over high-growth software peers - makes it the second most expensive stock in the Industry. This drives a target price of $60, implying an enterprise value/sales ratio of 32x for the 2026 fiscal year, a growth-adjusted ratio of 12x, which is a 100% premium over peers, but still has 25% downside compared to the current trading price.
编辑/jayden