Context matters. You need only read Barry Ritholtz’s latest post at the Big Picture to see why time frames matter so much.
The same goes for the articles about Palantir Technology’s ($PLTR) recently disclosed purchase of some $50.7 million in gold bars. Check out this headline: Palantir Buys Gold Bars as Hedge Against ‘Black Swan Event’
Which all seems very ominous and scary. $50 million of anything, is a lot of money to the average person. However, let’s zoom out about a bit.
- Palantir’s market cap as of today (Aug. 18, 2021) is some $49.4 billion.
- According to reports, Palantir has some $2.3 billion in cash on the balance sheet.
- And the company has invested over $300 million in shares of recent SPAC offerings.
So while the hype around 100 ounce gold bars and ‘black swan events’ serves a particular narrative, it doesn’t tell you all that much. $50 million of gold is roughly 2.2% of the company’s cash holdings, 16.9% of their SPAC investments and represents just 0.10% of the company’s market capitaliztion.
The price of gold may rise over the next few days, months or years.* And there could very well be a ‘black swan event’ sometime in the near future. However my hunch is that Cathie Wood of ARK Invest is buying shares of Palantir based on its underlying business, not on the value of gold bars in a vault somewhere.
*No position in PLTR, ARKK or gold.
