Palantir, WD-40, GoodRx: Trending tickers

Palantir Technologies (PLTR) shares closed higher on Wednesday. CEO Alex Karp said in an interview that the company has seen "great demand" for its products from Israel since the start of its war against Hamas, according to a report from Bloomberg.

WD-40 (WDFC) shares soared after reporting first-quarter results that were better than Wall Street was expecting. The company also reiterated its 2024 guidance.

Shares of GoodRx (GDRX) popped after reporting upbeat preliminary fourth quarter and full year 2023 results.

Yahoo Finance Live's Josh Lipton and Julie Hyman break down some of Wednesday's top trending tickers.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Editor's note: This article was written by Stephanie Mikulich

Video Transcript

JOSH LIPTON: Here now let's get to some trending tickers. Start here with Palantir since it's seeing high demand from Israel since the start of the war. It's according to Bloomberg. CEO Alex Karp saying in an interview in Tel Aviv, company has begun supplying different products than before. Shares of Palantir seeing a pop in today's trade.

So that was the news here, Alex Karp in Tel Aviv talking about high demand from Israel for these new tools from the company. Now, Karp didn't specify, it sounds like, which tech exactly Palantir is offering as well. So we don't have all the color right now, but high demand apparently is what he's talking about here.

Karp is in Israel. Apparently also billionaire Peter Thiel is there as well who, of course, co-founded Palantir. Palantir, remarkable run in part over excitement about AI last year. Remember, Palantir unveiling what it calls AIP, Julie, its artificial intelligence platform. Investors very excited about that. The stock is now up about 150% in the past 12 months.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, as we've talked about previously though, this is a controversial one for analysts, right? Sort of emblematic of that is Dan Ives on the bullish side who calls it the Messi of AI and then Brent Thill on the other side who is not so bullish on the stock for this year in part because of valuation. And in fact, if you look at the analysts-- I took a page from the Josh Lipton book and looked at the analyst count here-- six buy, six holds, eight sells.

And it's quite interesting to see a stock that is so buzzy, right, have that number. It's unusual to see any stock really. They're just not that many on Wall Street who do sells.

JOSH LIPTON: Yeah.

JULIE HYMAN: And yet this is one where there are quite a few.

JOSH LIPTON: It's interesting. I mean, after a run like that, you would expect people to step to the sidelines. And Brent Thill is a perfect example at Jefferies.

I mean, when you talk to Brent about Palantir, he's a fan of the company. He's a fan of the tech. He just thought it had reached, in his opinion, these kind of just unsustainable valuation levels at this point.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, definitely. All right, let's talk about WD-40 here. Those shares are surging after the company beat estimates on the top and bottom line for the fiscal first quarter blowing past Wall Street expectations.

The company sees top line growth in all three of trade-- trade blocks. The shares are up by 15% today. DA Davidson's Linda Bolton Weiser, who was on with us just recently, calling it an impressive quarter and she raised her price target to $289 here.

Basically, the commentary from the company is that they're off to a solid start. Volumes are recovering, which is interesting here because we had seen so many companies, really across industries, across manufacturing, talk about volumes lagging last year even if prices were up. Now this company saying that volumes are recovering.

JOSH LIPTON: Yeah, I have to-- I've been kind of sleeping on WD-40 here. I mean, I didn't hit a 52-week high in today's trade of about 257. Stock is now up more than 60% in the past year, and as you said in the news today, were chopping out earnings per share net sales for Q1 better than expected.

The CEO, as you noted, sounded very upbeat, Julie. They're starting fiscal '24 here, he says, firing on all cylinders. Not a lot of coverage on the Street, by the way, though. If you're looking for guidance from analysts, you have exactly one buy, one hold, and one sell.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, exactly.

JOSH LIPTON: All right, moving on here, our final ticker, by the way, let's check out GoodRx releasing its preliminary fourth quarter and full year 2023 results. Company providing upbeat expectations as it expects to build on its accelerating momentum in 2024. So GoodRx boosted its revenue guidance for the fourth quarter.

It looks like they see revenue now between 1.95 and 1.97. It had seen somewhere between, let's say, 188 and 194. Street was at about 191.

And they see EBITDA margin at the high end now between 2% and 5%. For the year here also, they see revenue between 749 and 751. The Street was about 749. CFO of the health care company quoted here is saying, "exciting work underway," expects to build on what they're characterizing as accelerating momentum in 2024.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, I tapped our Anjalee Khemlani, our health care reporter, to talk a little bit about this one because GoodRx spoke at the JP Morgan Health Care Conference, as well as putting out this press-- this statement and she's out there. She talked about the company having a strong December, more prescriptions based on seasonality. 80 plus percent of their transactions are now repeat customers. And they have some partnerships, not necessarily new, but CVS and Cigna partnerships here, that they're available via employer plans from those health insurers. So that's something she says that people were focusing on from the presentation.

JOSH LIPTON: Stocks up about 30% of those 12 months. Most on the Street though--

JULIE HYMAN: It's very volatile.

JOSH LIPTON: Very volatile. It's a wild looking chart. Most on the Street here on the sidelines. They have a meh. They're with a hold on this one.