A D.A. Davidson analyst 'would not be surprised' if Palantir splits its stock, given that it caters heavily to retail investors and has seen a strong rally.

Palantir reports earnings on Monday.

It's been a quiet year for stock-split announcements among big companies, but momentum has picked up this week with ServiceNow Inc. and Netflix Inc. planning moves of their own. Will Palantir Technologies Inc. be next?

It's something retail investors are watching for, according to Investor's Business Daily's coverage of a recent note from RBC Capital Markets. And D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria told MarketWatch that while he didn't have any specific knowledge of a Palantir (PLTR) split announcement on the horizon, he "would not be surprised" if Palantir opted to pursue one, given that the stock caters largely to individual investors and has seen a big run-up in recent years.

"A stock split is also a sign of confidence Palantir could decide to send the market," Luria said in emailed comments.

Palantir didn't immediately respond to a MarketWatch request for comment on a potential split. The company reports third-quarter earnings on Monday.

The merits of stock splits are debatable now that fractional trading has become commonplace. Before that, high stock prices were viewed as relatively inaccessible to individual investors, but now investors who don't have, say, $5,000-plus to drop on a share of Booking Holdings Inc. can still get in on the action.

Management teams still cite accessibility when announcing splits, however. The CEO of ServiceNow, which is planning a 5-for-1 split of its stock that has been trading near $900, told MarketWatch earlier this week that a lower price will "make it easy" for "consumer investors" to get more involved with the shares. And Netflix, which plans a 10-for-1 split of its $1,000-plus stock, said on Thursday that the new price will be "more accessible to employees who participate in the company's stock-option program."

Cboe Global Markets analysts said in a 2022 report that splits can "drive additional participation from retail investors" but do not "necessarily increase liquidity or attract investors' interest proportionally to the ratio at which the security was split," based on a look at split data.

Prior to the respective announcements from ServiceNow and Netflix on Wednesday and Thursday, things had been relatively subdued on the split front in 2025, with just three effective splits among S&P 500 components versus 18 last year in an unusually active period, according to recent data from Dow Jones Market Data.

"Companies tend to split their stocks during bull markets," Interactive Brokers Chief Strategist Steve Sosnick told MarketWatch earlier this week.

And Palantir's stock has seen a particularly strong run, having opened at $10 following a direct listing in September 2020. Five years later, the stock is nearing $200, and it's up 157% in 2025 alone, enough to rank fifth among S&P 500 gainers on the year.