By Nate Wolf

Shares of Palantir Technologies, which has a tight relationship with U.S. defense and intelligence operations, surged Monday after the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran over the weekend.

The conflict widened Monday as Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon fired missiles at one another and the U.S. military said it was sending more troops to the Middle East. The specter of a prolonged conflict lifted traditional defense stocks, such as Lockheed Martin and RTX.

Palantir stock joined them, rising 3.1% in premarket trading. It was one of the few large-cap artificial-intelligence players on the rise Monday. Nasdaq Composite futures were down 1.3% and the Roundhill Magnificent Seven exchange-traded fund dropped 1.6%.

The jump should come as no surprise given Palantir implements a large portion of the AI technology at the Pentagon. Last year, the company won a $10 billion contract with the U.S. Army that consolidated 75 contracts into one, plus a $448 million deal with the Navy.

Palantir credibly can claim to be both a defense stock and an AI beneficiary, which perhaps gives it an advantage over Big Tech peers in times of conflict. The stock saw a similar jump when the U.S. raided Venezuela in January and toppled leader Nicolás Maduro, though that boost quickly faded.

Write to Nate Wolf at nate.wolf@barrons.com

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March 02, 2026 09:13 ET (14:13 GMT)

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