Quick Read
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Palantir and Okta each plunged 10% as the midterm-fueled AI selloff hit software, hammering names that ran hardest this year.
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Fortinet is falling far less than Palo Alto and other peers, as its firewall hardware tilt sets it apart from pure software.
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Palantir’s Q3 revenue surged 96% and guidance rose, yet bears warn that political hostility toward AI data centers and stretched valuations could cap gains.
Wall Street‘s post-election retreat from AI trades has spread to software, and Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ:PLTR) is taking one of the hardest blows. Palantir stock is at $155.28 in afternoon trading, down 10%. The slide has wiped about $40 billion off the company’s market value, and it puts Palantir on pace for its worst day since February.
Palantir stock sits roughly a quarter below its October 9 record and is testing a closely watched long-term moving average. At this point, PLTR stock is down 13% year to date (YTD). That makes it the exception to a pattern in which the hardest-hit software names are the ones that ran the farthest this year.
Midterm Results Drag the AI Selloff Into Software
Democrats won both chambers of Congress in the November 3 midterm elections after a campaign in which candidates from both parties targeted AI data centers, Yahoo Finance reported. Chip stocks took the first wave of selling, and the pressure has now reached Palantir and the other software names most tied to the AI build-out. U.S. indexes are sliding, with the NASDAQ Composite down more than 5% and the S&P 500 down more than 3%.
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Palantir’s Q3 2026 report on November 2 is background to this move: adjusted EPS of $0.44 beat expectations of $0.41, and its revenue rose 96% year over year (YoY) to $2.31 billion. The company’s U.S. commercial revenue of $984 million exceeded its U.S. government revenue for the first time, and management raised its full-year revenue guidance to between $8.53 billion and $8.534 billion. CEO Alex Karp told analysts on the call, “We really cannot satiate demand.” Risks flagged in the company’s filing include slowing total contract value growth and rising stock-based compensation.
