MarketScreener analysts will have plenty of time to ponder this old proverb of British popular wisdom. While it was tempting to speak ill of the Denver-based firm controlled by Peter Thiel and managed by Alex Karp, it has to be said that the company has been sending out positive signals for some time now.

Remember: opaque activities, gargantuan stock option remunerations, accounts in the red, bizarre investments in gold, "cult" stock status with often very young private investors and, of course, valuations in line with what was happening at the time, i.e. at between twenty and thirty times earnings... There was reason to doubt.

Palantir was not unaware of these criticisms. It was therefore a matter of giving proof, which the company has been actively doing for the past few half-years, with, it must be said, a certain amount of brio. Not only does the company's growth trajectory remain strong - sales more or less double every two years - but profits are also keeping pace.

The first step, of course, was to trim the fat from stock options. In 2023, these amounted to $476 million, three times less than three years ago. As a result, and in addition to growing revenues, Palantir posted its third half-year in a row in the green, with earnings per share rising from $0.02 in the first half of 2023 to $0.11 in the first half of 2024.

The market has not ignored this progress - how could it, given Palantir's close scrutiny? - so much so that the company's valuation - adjusted for excess cash - has risen to twenty times sales. This represents a return to the high levels seen at the height of the speculative bubble, during the Covid bubble.

Will his fans hold it against Peter Thiel to have taken advantage of the rebound to reduce his stake by 11%? It's true that he now has ambitious political ambitions to finance...

The key question remains: what does Palantir really do? CEO Alex Karp explained that the company was aligned with the values of its shareholders, "which means fighting to make the West stronger and better, including on the battlefield. "An answer entirely in keeping with the spirit of mystery that the Denver-based company has cultivated since its inception...

As a MarketScreener analyst remarked in a semi-joking tone, the simplest way to sum it up is to define Palantir as "a specialist in AI when used to monitor or kill people".