Palantir is closer to an East India Company

Perhaps there is a different valuation metric relevant for a nearly sovereign entity. Nobody is buying shares for "money returned to shareholders", because nobody is using shares as a conduit, the corporation relies on a low-float to pump their own stocks and delete the shares in buybacks that squeeze the price.

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arduanika 4 days ago | parent [-]

> "money returned to shareholders"

> buybacks

I'm not sure you understand what a buyback is, and given that display of ignorance, I don't see why anyone would care about your (entirely unrelated) observation about Palantir.

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yieldcrv 4 days ago | parent [-]

shares exist as conduits to return money to shareholders via dividends

buybacks are more efficient but only pump the shares on the open market, by nature, some shareholders are essentially getting money returned, but primarily its to reduce scarcity so all shareholders just have higher value shares for utility at their own discretion

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arduanika 4 days ago | parent [-]

No, all shareholders are essentially getting money returned.

"Higher value shares for utility at their own discretion" = negotiable securities = money.

This conspiratorial "some" is...not a good sign that you're well calibrated enough to tell me what long-dead companies Palantir is or is not like. I'll take my critiques of Palantir from people who understand what they're talking about.

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yieldcrv 3 days ago | parent [-]

“some” was actually included predicting you would just as be pedantic if I didn't mention the people that sold their shares during the buyback by just happenstance of selling at the same time

you are trying to make a point about me but provided none, while agreeing with what I said

that was…. predictable

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arduanika 3 days ago | parent [-]

Ah, okay. I understand where the "some" was coming from now. Leaving my earlier comment as-is to keep the chain coherent, but I now see that it wasn't conspiratorial.

Let me see if I can put my point a little more politely. There is basically no economic difference between dividends and buybacks, apart from some tax technicalities. When people talk as if dividends are good and pure whereas buybacks are somehow evil and decoupled from reality, it is almost always drivel.

You seem to have a notion that shares, in their untampered state, should be "conduits to return money to shareholders via dividends". But it really makes ~no economic difference whether the shareholders get direct returns via dividends, versus indirect returns via buybacks.

And I really don't understand what connection you see between this minute distinction, and your point about Palantir being a "nearly sovereign entity". Perhaps you could spell that out.

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yieldcrv 3 days ago | parent [-]

okay, lets reset

I don’t find buybacks to be controversial, I find the Price to Equity metric to be controversial and its relevance up for review because it is based on the idea that there will be future yield in the form of dividends, and people muse about or lament how many years it would take for a shareholder to ROI from dividends at a certain share price.

But since that is not a market reality the PE ratio can be ignored as its not about the time horizon or tolerance of shareholders.

Palantir specifically has government contracts, very large ones, and is in a position to create and be selected for more contracts. Tightly coupled with this administration and the domestic and geopolitical environment.

	▲	arduanika 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Okay, I find this much more reasonable than what you wrote initially.