Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters
- Palantir stock slid 13% on Tuesday as insiders take advantage of a lockup expiration to offload shares of the big data company.
- Co-founder Stephen Cohen and two other top executives sold 2.7 million shares of Palantir since the lockup expired on February 18.
- The move comes as the price of Palantir stock continues to fall from Jan. 27 highs of over $39 per share.
- Watch Palantir trade live here.
Palantir stock sank as much as 13% on Tuesday after regulatory filings showed the company’s co-founder Stephen Cohen and two other top executives offloaded 2.7 million shares.
SEC filings revealed (1) (2) (3) the trio took advantage of Palantir’s recent lockup expiration selling shares in the $25-$30 price range on February 18, 19, and 22.
Stephen Cohen is a computer scientist who founded Palantir in 2003 with the help of Peter Thiel, Nathan Gettings, Joe Lonsdale, and Alex Karp. The sales by Cohen continue a trend at Palantir of insiders cashing out on the company’s historic run.
Palantir’s stock rose over 300% from $9.50 at the end of its first day of trading to over $39 per share on Jan 27. Since then, the company has retraced some of those gains, though insiders are still cashing in.
Just a month after Palantir went public last year, CEO Alex Karp and co-found Peter Thiel sold a combined 41.45 million shares, for more than $400 million.
Meanwhile, an SEC filing released on Friday showed Peter Thiel sold roughly 20 million shares of Palantir between $25-$26 per share after converting class B common stock into class A common stock.
Still, according to data from the Wall Street Journal, over the last six months there have been $136 million worth of awards and purchases of Palantir stock from insiders versus just $38 million in sales, while big-time investors keep adding shares as well.
Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest ETFs acquired roughly 6.8 million shares of Palantir last week as the stock pulled back.
The company also was recently given a fresh “buy” rating from analysts at Goldman Sachs who cited a path to “sustainable growth” as the reason they like the stock.
Palantir traded down 10% as of 9:52AM E.T. on Tuesday.
Markets Insider
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