PLTR Pops After Partnering With IBM to Develop AI Product

The shares of Palantir Technologies Inc (NYSE:PLTR) are skyrocketing this morning, last seen up over 11.5% to trade at $37.71, after the company announced a partnership with IBM (IBM) to create a new product: Palantir for IBM Cloud Pak for Data. Available as soon as March, the product will help businesses open and deploy powerful artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The tech name also announced it is employing Red Hat OpenShift, which will allow this new product to be run anywhere in the hybrid cloud. 

The equity, which went public in late-September with a reference price of $7.25, has been churning higher since its debut. And though its late-January spike toward the $45 level was short-lived, support from the 20-day moving average is keeping this recent pullback in check. In the last three months alone, PLTR has added a whopping 143%.

The brokerage bunch is still hesitant toward the security, though. Of the four in coverage, only one analyst calls it a "strong buy," while two say "hold," and one says "strong sell." What's more, the 12-month consensus price target of $17.83 is a 47.7% discount to its current perch, meaning more price-target hikes could be on the horizon for Palantir stock. 

Short sellers have been building their positions, too. In the last two-week reporting period, short interest rose 9.1%. The 98.95 million shares sold short make up a hefty 9.7% of the stock's available float, or 1.5 days of trading at PLTR's average pace.