Nvidia Is Soaring — The Big Question Is When Does Palantir’s Turn Come?

Joey Frenette

Mon, May 18, 2026 at 6:45 AM EDT 4 min read

Quick Read

• Nvidia (NVDA) broke to new highs of $235+ per share on U.S. approval to sell older H200 chips to China, with the semiconductor titan now valued at $5.45 trillion. Palantir (PLTR) remains stuck in a bear market with an expensive valuation that investors struggle to justify despite strong operational metrics like a 145% Rule of 40 score.

• Nvidia’s dominance in GPUs and cheap traditional valuations position it differently than Palantir, which faces uncertainty as the AI market shifts focus away from the AI application layer

• The analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks. Get them here FREE.

In case you missed it, shares of Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) finally broke out to hit new highs of $235 and change per share before pulling back slightly. It's been a long time coming, and the upward move came as quite a surprise, as it wasn't a blowout quarterly earnings reveal, another new circular deal or partnership, or even upbeat commentary from the great Jensen Huang; it was actually a surprising U.S. approval for Nvidia to sell some more of its older chips, the H200, to China.

And with explosive momentum spreading across the semiconductor market, perhaps it's not all too big of a surprise to see the $5.45 trillion titan moving on from its fairly lengthy breather. It's hard to tell what the next move for the semis will be and whether the $6 trillion market cap level can be breached as a part of this rally.

Palantir stock is in a tougher spot. Will it get its turn to turn?

But I do think that such a run has Palantir (NASDAQ:PLTR) investors wondering when Alex Karp's empire will be stepping up to bat. Either way, running to the exits with a former AI high-flyer as it enters a pressured period might not be without its own share of upside risks.

The analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 stocks. Get them here FREE.

In any case, Palantir stock was in a far tougher spot than Nvidia, given that the stock has been stuck in a bear market, rather than running sideways in a "sideways correction," to speak. With that much negative momentum and the worry of a Michael Burry bearish bet, you can imagine how tough it can be to maintain conviction in a momentum trade that's starting to look incredibly choppy.

Any way you look at it, shares of Palantir are running through their most challenging period to date. With an applause-worthy first quarter that was met with selling, it certainly feels like nothing can help the AI analytics titan reverse course.

Indeed, it felt like that for Nvidia for a while, which has also been knocking quarters out of the park for much of the year while unveiling profound innovations throughout the past year.