The Narrative Shift of Late 2025
Data doesn’t lie. Short sellers do. For two years, the loudest voices on Wall Street claimed that Palantir was a consulting firm masquerading as a software giant. They were wrong. As of the market close on November 3, 2025, Palantir (PLTR) has officially silenced the skeptics with its Q3 2025 earnings report, showing a 44 percent year over year increase in US Commercial revenue. This isn’t just growth. This is a structural takeover of the enterprise decision-making layer.
Palantir Proves the Short Sellers Wrong
The skepticism that defined 2023 and 2024 has evaporated into a cloud of covering buy orders. Yesterday’s earnings call highlighted a critical metric: the Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) is now integrated into 70 percent of the Fortune 100. Per the latest SEC Form 8-K filings, Palantir’s operating margins have expanded to 38 percent, a level previously thought impossible by those betting on a price collapse. CEO Alex Karp’s aggressive stance against short sellers has transitioned from rhetorical bravado to mathematical fact.
IBM and the Industrialization of Watsonx
While Palantir captures the headlines, IBM has undergone a quiet, surgical transformation. The era of generic cloud services is over. IBM’s focus on hybrid cloud and sovereign AI has allowed it to recapture market share from legacy providers. According to recent Reuters market analysis, IBM’s Watsonx platform has seen a 60 percent increase in deployment within the regulated financial services sector over the last twelve months. Unlike the speculative fever of 2024, IBM is trading on a price-to-earnings ratio of 22x, suggesting that the market is finally pricing in its AI-driven cash flow stability.
Amazon and the AWS Re-acceleration
Amazon Web Services (AWS) remains the undisputed heavyweight, but the nature of its dominance has changed. In 2024, analysts feared that specialized AI chips would erode Amazon’s margins. However, the Q3 2025 data tells a different story. AWS has successfully transitioned its client base to its custom Graviton and Trainium silicon, reducing operational costs and maintaining a 30 percent operating margin. The integration of generative AI into the core retail stack has also driven a 15 percent increase in logistics efficiency, a metric that was stagnant for nearly three years.
| Metric (Nov 2025) | Palantir (PLTR) | IBM (IBM) | Amazon (AMZN) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Market Cap | $162B | $215B | $2.1T |
| AI Revenue Contribution | 58% | 24% | 18% |
| Institutional Ownership | 48% | 62% | 59% |
| P/E Ratio (Forward) | 88.4 | 22.1 | 41.5 |
The Strategic Divergence
We are no longer in a market where a rising AI tide lifts all boats. The divergence between companies that talk about AI and those that deploy it is now visible in the hard numbers. Palantir is being valued as a unique operating system for the modern enterprise, while IBM is being repositioned as the safe, high-yield architect of the AI transition. Amazon, conversely, is using AI to defend its massive infrastructure moat. Shorting these stocks in the current environment requires an ignore-the-data approach that few professional funds can afford to sustain after the carnage of the last four quarters.
As we look toward the first quarter of 2026, the critical data point to monitor is the January 15 release of the Federal AI Procurement Audit. This report will reveal the exact percentage of government spend allocated to proprietary versus open-source models, a milestone that will likely dictate the next phase of Palantir’s price discovery.
