Cathie Wood’s ARK Sparks Wall Street FOMO with Investment in Sagging Palantir

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For a star investor, what’s buying a dip without causing a little bit of FOMO?

Palantir climbed 3.3% on Monday to $132.37 after Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest said it bought $11 million worth of shares in the software company across five exchange-traded funds. With the right conditions, it could be a bargain. With the wrong ones, well …

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For its part, Palantir has its own record to point to. When the software company, which makes data and analytics platforms for corporations, governments, law enforcement and militaries, last reported earnings in February, it blew past Wall Street estimates with a 70% year-over-year increase in revenue. Several underlying metrics also bested expectations, including a rosy $1.5 billion revenue projection for the first quarter of 2026, due to be reported on May 4. In the closest thing to a CEO cutting a Macho Man-style wrestling promo, Alex Karp boasted that this was “indisputably the best results that I’m aware of in tech in the last decade.”

But the lofty expectations implied by the value of its shares, which traded at 99 times forward earnings as of Monday, are hard to ignore, given this year’s concerns about potential artificial intelligence disruption of the software space. Against that backdrop, Palantir shares are down 25.5% this year. Wood’s decision to increase her firm’s exposure suggests she believes Karp’s team can sustain growth at a rate that will justify this valuation. If history is any guide, the ARK fund’s performance depends on the waves it’s sailing on:

• Wood’s flagship ETF returned 153% in 2020, earning her a superstar reputation for picking high-flying tech stocks. But the strategy has proven painful during bearish times, as evidenced by the fund’s 67% tumble in 2022.

• That dynamic has been on display this year: The ARK Innovation ETF  is down 7.6% in 2026 amid software selloffs, AI upheaval and geopolitical uncertainty. But it has also handily beaten the market in the past 12 months, rising 56.8% on the upside promise of its holdings across AI, fintech, healthcare innovation and more.

If you believe the worst of this year’s geopolitical strife is behind us, like Blackstone analysts said Monday, then Palantir and other software firms could be well positioned in the months ahead. Markets signaled optimism across the sector Monday as shares in Oracle, Adobe, ServiceNow and Salesforce also popped.

Presidential Endorsement: Karp’s firm also earned an endorsement from the highest office in the land on Friday, which likely didn’t hurt the stock’s chances, either. President Donald Trump hailed the military utility of its tech, writing in a social media post: “Palantir Technologies (PLTR) has proven to have great war-fighting capabilities and equipment. Just ask our enemies!!!”

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