Fountainheadinvesting

Fountainhead Investing

  • Objective Analysis: Research On High Quality Companies With Sustainable Moats
  • Tech Focused: 60% Allocated To AI, Semiconductors, Technology

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AI Enterprise Software Industry Market Outlook Stocks

AI And The Multiplier Effect From Software

02/11/2025

The Software Multiplier Effect: An interesting note from Wedbush’s Dan Ives on Artificial Intelligence, who believes that software AI players will likely get 8 times the revenue of hardware sellers. I.e., a multiplier effect of 8:1 from software.

He is directionally right, and I do agree with him about the multiplier effect of software, services, and platforms on top of hardware sales. I had done a primary study several years ago with companies like Oracle, IBM, and Salesforce among others, and we saw similar feedback of about 6 to 1 for software spend to hardware spend, over time. People naturally cost more.

Nonetheless, regardless of whether it is 6 to 1 or 8 to 1, both numbers are huge and extremely likely in my opinion in the next 5 to 10 years and Palantir’s (PLTR) Dec quarter earnings hit it out of the park.

Dan Ives said:

Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ:PLTR) and Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) remain the two best software plays on the AI Revolution for 2025.

The firm also recommended other software vendors such as Oracle (ORCL) IBM (IBM), Innodata (INOD) Snowflake (SNOW), MongoDB (MDB), Elastic (ESTC), and Pegasystems (PEGA) enjoying the AI spoils.

Analysts led by Daniel Ives said:

Palantir has been a major focus during the AI Revolution with expanding use cases for its marquee products leading to a larger partner ecosystem with rapidly rising demand across the landscape for enterprise-scale and enterprise-ready generative AI.

Major Growth Expected: The analysts added that this will be a major growth driver for the U.S. Commercial business over the next 12 to 18 months as more enterprises take the AI path with Palantir. They believe “Palantir has a credible path to morph into the next Oracle over the coming decade” with Artificial Intelligence Platform, or AIP, leading the way.

Wedbush’s feedback about budget allocations is very helpful and even if one discounted Dan Ives’ perpetual optimism and bullishness by some, it’s a great indicator that this will be a favored sector in 2025-2028.

Ives and his team have been tracking several large companies that are or are planning to use AI path in 2025 to gauge enterprise AI spending, use cases, and which vendors are separating from the pack in the AI Revolution.

The numbers are gratifying:

Analysts expect that AI now consists of about 10% of many IT budgets for 2025 they are tracking and in some cases up to 15%, as many chief information officers, or CIOs, have accelerated their AI strategy over the next six to nine months as monetization of this key theme is starting to become a reality across many industries.

“While the first steps in AI deployments are around Nvidia (NVDA) chips and the cloud stalwarts, importantly we estimate that for every $1 spent on Nvidia, there is an $8-$10 multiplier across the rest of the tech ecosystem,” said Ives and his team.

What’s more important?

Analysts noted that about 70% of customers they have talked to have accelerated their AI budget dollars and initiatives over the last six months. The analysts added that herein is the huge spending that is now going on in the tech world, with $2T of AI capital expenditure over the next three years fueling this generational tech spending wave.

Hyperscalers indicated supreme confidence in their AI strategy committing in excess of $300Bn in Capex for 2025, which is historic. Amazon’s CEO Any Jassy was categorical in stating AWS doesn’t spend till they’re certain of demand.

Ives had this to add, underscoring Amazon’s confidence.

In addition, Ives and his team said that they are seeing many IT departments focused on foundational hyperscale deployments for AI around Microsoft (MSFT) Amazon (AMZN), and Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) with a focus on software-driven use cases currently underway.

“The AI Software era is now here in our view,” said Ives and his team. Wedbush’s team strongly believes that the broader software space will expand the AI revolution further, cementing what I saw at the CES last month. There is so much computing power available and so many possibilities of use cases exploding that this space could see a major inflection point in 2025-2026.

Large language models, or LLM, and the adoption of generative AI should be a major catalyst for the software sector.

Categories
AI Enterprise Software Stocks

Palantir Q3-24: Strikingly Good Results and Raised Guidance

Palantir Technologies (NYSE: PLTR): Q3 Non-GAAP EPS of $0.10 beats by $0.01.

Revenue of $725.52Mn (+30.0% Y/Y) beats by $21.83M. 30% growth is remarkable, the consensus was for 26-27%.

Big deals increased with Palantir closing 104 deals over $1 million as customer count grew 39% year-over-year and 6% quarter-over-quarter

Operating cash generation was also solid with $420Mn last quarter, at a 58% margin.

Palantir generated an adjusted free cash flow of $435 million, representing a 60% margin and over $1 billion on a trailing twelve-month basis.

Guidance

Q4 Outlook: Revenue of between $767 – $771 million vs. consensus of $744.04M.

At a midpoint of $769Mn, it is $25Mn over the consensus or 3.4% higher – another impressive feat.

Adjusted income from operations of between $298 – $302 million.

One of Palantir’s biggest strengths is its AIP (Artificial Intelligence Platform) Bootcamp sales strategy, which accelerates new customer acquisition, with conversions as fast as 16 days, boosting Palantir’s growth prospects. And from the last quarter’s excellent results, it has come through in spades.

I had recommended Palantir earlier in July 2023 at $17.

2024 Outlook: They raised their revenue guidance to $2.805 – $2.809 billion vs. the prior consensus of $2.76B. At the midpoint, that’s about 2% higher.

Palantir’s growth engine has been its commercial revenue segment, which was raised to more than $687 million, representing a growth rate of at least 50%.

They raised their adjusted income from operations guidance to between $1.054 and $1.058 billion and adjusted free cash flow guidance to more than $1 billion.

Cash Rich: Cash, cash equivalents, and short-term U.S. Treasury securities of $4.6 billion

They continue to expect GAAP operating income and net income in each quarter of this year. Clearly, the markets have been rewarding companies showing a healthy respect for profits over loss-making revenue growth at any cost, and Palantir has done an excellent job staying in the black for two years now.

Not surprisingly, shares are up 11% to $46

My biggest grouse has been Palantir’s valuation. I’ve already done well recommending and buying it for around $17. At a P/S multiple of 28X next year’s revenue of $3.4Bn, growing at 22% — this stock is way too rich for my liking and in the past quarter, I’ve sold twice. I will sell another 10% and hold on to the rest. It’s better to take profits.

Categories
AI

Palantir (PLTR) Surges 18% to $19.61 Post-Earnings: A Long-Term Buy Opportunity

*Palantir – $19.61 Post Earning pop of 18%!*

*One can start nibbling at around $19.60 BUT spread out purchases on declines, there should be declines after this post earnings bump and since this is a long term story I still anticipate 15-16% of annual gains over the next 5 years.*

The Reasons for the post earnings pop.

I think the trend of rewarding profitability as in the case of Meta last week seems to be working for Palantir as well. 

Investors are seeing that Palantir is serious about cost control and better margins. With revenue growth in the low 20’s overall, with the main catalyst being commercial customers, Palantir is doing the right thing by focusing on profitability.

Consider these metrics for Q4, which indicate a lot of progress since the days when Palantir didn’t care about profitability….I guess the drop to $6.35 at its low changed their perspective quite a bit

Fourth consecutive quarter of GAAP operating profitability. 11% Margin.

Adjusted free cash flow of $305 million; 50% margin; 731Mn for the year.

Adjusted operating margin of 34%; 28% for the year.

Fifth consecutive quarter of expanding adjusted operating margins 

Fifth consecutive quarter of GAAP profitability; 15% margin

Commercial customer count grew at a very impressive rate of 55% – higher than the revenue of 32%, this is mostly normal for Palantir, they usually land and expand.

While the revenue guidance is just 1-2% higher than the previous estimate, there is  guidance for GAAP profits in each quarter, 40% commercial business growth and adjusted profit margins of 32+% and cash flow of 33% – that is very good.

The AIP (Artificial Intelligence Platform) seems to be getting a lot of attention.

I also suspect multiples and targets will also move up considerably, growth can accelerate from here.

Categories
Stocks

Palantir and TSMC: Strong Long-Term Investment Opportunities in Data Analytics and Semiconductor Industry

*Palantir: (PLTR) Buy, $16.50  One year target $20.* 

*Invest 5 Years, 18-20% annual return.*

EPS Growth P/E PEG Sales Sales Growth P/S PS/G

0.30 29% 55 1.9 2.2 24% 16 67%

Palantir is a solid performer in the Data Analytics and AI space.

Their government business segment is a massive cash cow and a moat, because of long duration and sticky contracts and switching costs. 

The commercial segment is growing much faster at 50%, and will be its growth engine, with the help of its Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP), which  tripled the number of users in the past quarter, with over 300 organizations using the new product in the last 5 months.

The stock is expensive especially after doubling last year but can be bought in installments and declines. I own some with an average cost of $15.

CPI Report: Inflation was slightly higher than expected.

Taiwan Semiconductor  Manufacturing(TSM) Buy, $100  One year target $120. 

Invest 5 Years, 15 % annual return. P/E 20, 3-5 year EPS growth 18-20%.

The Semiconductor foundry (manufacturing) leader by far with about 50% market share has large and deep moats in new processes, scale and costs. The semiconductor industry would collapse without it – it would take years for Global Foundries, Intel, Samsung, et al to even come close to catching up. Consider that TSM is spending up to $40Bn to set up a new foundry in Arizona,  and it’s having trouble finding enough qualified people for its plant. 

Revenue growth of 12-14% and earnings growth of 18-20% for the next three years augur well for the company. Normally TSM would be priced at over 40X earnings and closer to 10x sales, about twice the current price. Unfortunately, it being located in Taiwan and with China’s open design on it – multiples will always stay lower because of these geopolitical tensions. Still, the stock has rewarded investors well in the past with steady appreciation in the mid teens. It’s a must have for the portfolio specially for long term steady growth.

Palantir: (PLTR) Buy, $16.50  One year target $280. 

Invest 5 Years, 16-20% annual return. P/E 34, 3-5 year EPS growth 14-16%.

CPI Report: Inflation was slightly higher than expected.

December Consumer Price Index: +0.3% M/M vs. +0.2% expected and +0.1% prior.

+3.4% Year on Year  vs. 3.2% expected and +3.1% prior month

Core CPI, which excludes food and energy: +0.3% M/M vs. +0.2% expected and +0.3% prior. +3.9% Year on Year vs. 3.8% expected and +4.0% prior.

Stock Futures are flat as is the 10 year Treasury yield at 4.02%