Palantir has delivered a blockbuster first quarter, with revenue up 85% year-on-year to $1.63bn, the company’s highest growth rate on record, prompting another upgrade to full-year guidance.
The US business is the key driver of growth, more than doubling year-on-year to $1.28bn, with US commercial jumping 133% to $595m. Business from the US government rose 84% to $687m.
Palantir closed 206 deals of $1m or more in the quarter, including 47 above $10m.
“Palantir delivered another strong quarter, with demand for its AI platform continuing to accelerate across both commercial customers and government agencies, said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown.
Total contract value reached $2.41bn, up 61%, and US commercial remaining deal value sits at $4.92bn, more than double a year ago, pointing to a healthy revenue runway.
But it’s not just a revenue growth story. Palantir is successfully converting top-line growth into profits. GAAP operating margin came in at 46%, with adjusted operating margin of 60% and adjusted free cash flow margin of 57%.
The outlook should be encouraging for investors. Full-year revenue guidance has been lifted to $7.65bn–$7.66bn, implying around 71% growth and ten points ahead of the previous quarter’s outlook.
US commercial revenue guidance has been raised to at least $3.22bn, representing a significant share of the year’s forecast revenue. Q2 is guided to revenue of $1.80bn-ish, with adjusted operating income of around $1.06bn.
“The key point is that this growth is not just about companies testing AI in small pockets – Palantir is increasingly being used in real-world operations, where the stakes are high, and customers need AI to deliver clear, measurable results,” Matt Britzman said.
“Management struck a very confident tone, pointing to strong US demand, expanding customer commitments and a sharp uplift in full-year guidance. That all supports the idea that Palantir has become one of the clearest ways to play the shift from AI hype to implementation.”
The ‘hype’ Britzman alludes to is still evident in Palantir shares, which value the company at $350bn – an eye-watering valuation on earnings and sales multiples. For now, however, Palantir’s innovative offering and promise of future growth are proving sufficient to support the shares.
RWS Holdings has reached an agreement in principle to acquire Obviously Group, a London-based AI-enabled IP and brand management platform
The deal boosts the global AI solutions firm’s positioning as an end-to-end “Global Brand Guardianship” provider for large enterprise clients.
Obviously’s platform brings IP portfolio management, AI-driven brand protection and IP intelligence under one roof, and slots neatly into RWS’s existing Protect and Transform segments.
Crucially, it would enable RWS to offer patents, trademarks, and broader brand protection on a single, consolidated platform. This will be seen as a meaningful upgrade to the value proposition.
The growth runway is the headline. RWS reckons the deal expands its total addressable market by around £2bn, opening the door to trademark and brand protection work while giving Protect a sharper tool to win a bigger share of its existing market.
Obviously’s enterprise client base, spanning media and entertainment, tech, financial services, pharmaceuticals and sports, provides a useful springboard for cross-sell into RWS’s much larger account base.
Obviously generated revenues of around £2.5m in the year to 28 February 2026 and posted a £1.5m loss.
Initial cash consideration is £16.5m on a cash-free, debt-free basis, with up to £23.5m of earn-outs tied to stretching EBITDA hurdles through to FY29, capped at £40m in total.
Benjamin Faes, Chief Executive Officer of RWS, said: “The acquisition of Obviously will be a significant step forward in accelerating our growth by pivoting to be a technology-first business with holistic solutions for enterprise clients.”
“Obviously’s innovative integrated platform, which safeguards brands through IP & brand management, protection and enforcement intelligence, will be a strong fit with both our existing patent-focused IP business and our localisation capabilities.
“Bringing Obviously into the Group will mean RWS can offer an integrated, global brand guardianship solution to our existing client base and will position us well for potential clients in our existing and expanded addressable market. I look forward to welcoming the technology and talent that Obviously will bring into the Group.”
Some positive news from AOTI (LON: AOTI) with additional data on its TWO2 treatment showing effectiveness in treatment of hard to heal wounds and a low level of recurrence. Hospitalisations and amputations were low. AOTI is still awaiting the CMS coverage determination for the wider Medicaid population in the US. That will give greater access to the treatment. The share price rebounded 48.2% to 63p.
Stonehage Fleming Investment Management increased has taken a 6.1% stake in Dianomi (LON: DNM). The share price improved 28.6% to 18p.
A positive trading statement by IG Design (LON: IGR) has led to upgrades for the year just ended and the current year. Ongoing gift wrap and stationery business is better than expected, although consumer confidence remains weak. In the year to March 2026, revenues were $292m, while the pre-tax profit estimate has been increased from $9.5m to $11.5m. This year’s pre-tax profit forecast has been raised from $12.3m to $14.3m, helped by an earnings enhancing acquisition in South Africa. Net cash is $72m before the £3.4m spent on the acquisition. The share price recovered 27.8% to 69.5p.
Professional services provider Christie Group (LON: CTG) beat previously upgraded profit forecasts for 2025. Pre-tax profit jumped from £2.6m to £6m, helped by the sale of loss making operations, and the dividend was raised 56% to 3.5p/share. Additional hires will increase costs this year, so profit is forecast to fall to £4.6m. The share price rose by one-quarter to 150p, which is 11 times prospective 2026 earnings.
FALLERS
Sexual dysfunction treatments developer Futura Medical (LON: FUM) is putting its new strategy into force by cutting costs and focusing on a more commercial approach. Female sexual dysfunction treatment WSD4000 has significant potential, and a phase 3 trial could start before the end of the year. Potential partners are in talks with the company. There was £3.4m in the bank at the end of 2025 and this should last until June. The previously highlighted milestone payment from Haleon for achieving the Eroxon patent in the US has still to be paid, but management is confident that it has been triggered. This cash should come in before June and would last until the end of the year. Alternative funding options are being assessed just in case the Haleon payment is not made before June. The share price dived 48.6% to 0.746p.
GenIP (LON: GNIP) is raising £350,000 at 7p/share and the cash will be used to fund new product development and additional staff. Earlier in the week, GenIP announced a strategic alliance with US-based professional services provider Cardinal IP. The two companies will sell each other’s products. CMC has been appointed as joint broker. The share price fell 33.2% to 6.85p.
Celsius Resources (LON: CLA) continues to make progress with the Maalinao-Caigutan-Biyog Copper-Gold project and the development of the mine and process plant, which is out for tender. Equinaire Holdings says it acquired the loan held by Makilala Mining Company in order to become involved in offtake arrangements. The share price slipped 29.2% to 0.46p.
ProService Building Services Marketplace (LON: PRO), formerly HSS Hire, says 2025-26 revenues from continuing operations is expected to be £248m, which is lower than forecast. That is due to a lower ramping up of the new arrangements with Speedy Hire and the weak construction market. The company is investing in further automation of its marketplace platform. Speedy Hire volumes are improving, and the deal should be earnings enhancing this year. Net debt was £27.2m at the end of March 2026 and the debt should be refinanced by August. Guidance for 2026-27 EBITDA is between £9m and £12m. Consensus was previously £19.6m. The share price declined 23.5% to 3.275p.
Inqo Investments (LON: INQO) has opened the Pabidi Lodge in Uganda. This is an eco-luxury hospitality asset located in Uganda’s Budongo Forest, within the broader Murchison Falls National Park. The share price rose 15% to 57.5p.
FALLERS
Mendell Helium (LON: MDH) has exercised the option to acquire M3 Helium. Completion is expected in May and £5m is being raised at 4p/share. M3 Helium already has helium production and potential to increase this through drilling and building infrastructure. Dividends are possible in 2027. The share price slipped 32.7% to 4.375p.
WeCap (LON: WCAP) investee company WeShop published 2025 results. It remains an early stage business and there is an initial rollout of the social commerce platform and beta testing of the WeShop app in the US. The company is recruiting in the US. WeShop processed transactions with a GMV of $140m. The WeShop share price drifted down to $8.80, although it has still risen by 50% over the past month. The WeCap share price fell 29.2% to 0.425p.
Ajax Resources (LON: AJAX) has made a £200,000 strategic investment in Reveille Resources, taking a 25% stake in the Italy-focused uranium explorer that wants to join Aquis. Reveille Resources has interests in the Novazza and Val Vedello uranium deposits. Ajax Resources is taking an option over the acquisition of Minerva Metals, which holds the Sebera exploration licence in Italy, which is targeting antimony, tungsten and gold. Ajax Resources is planning a listing on Euronext Growth Oslo. The share price declined 11.4% to 7.75p.
Digital asset company Coinsilium (LON: COIN) continues to make progress with advancing its operating model. Otomato has launched its application across web and mobile. There is increasing activity on the Yellow Network, and it is moving towards the launch of decentralised perpetual futures contracts trading. The share price dipped 3.23% to 3p.
The FTSE 100 eased back on Friday as oil prices remained above $110 amid ongoing concerns about developments in the Middle East.
London’s leading index was trading down 0.5% at the time of writing, with reports swirling that the US was again considering military options.
London was one of the few stock markets open on Friday because of various holidays worldwide, including European Labour Day.
“The FTSE 100 took a step back on Friday on a mix of continuing concern about the situation in the Middle East, profit taking in the utilities sector and weakness among precious metals miners,” said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould.
“The latest US earnings season has been robust, which has helped prevent global markets from suffering big losses despite the impact of the Iran conflict. US futures are pointing to another strong showing when trading resumes on Wall Street later.
“But oil prices remaining above $110 per barrel are a reminder of the stakes for the global economy and the fact that there looks to be no path to the Strait of Hormuz reopening in the near term.”
FTSE 100 movers
Precious miner Endeavour Mining was the FTSE 100’s top faller as gold prices slipped again on Friday after a rather soggy week.
NatWest shares were among the losers after the bank released Q1 results that failed to inspire investors. The bank performed well during the period, and shares fell 3% largely due to the outlook.
“NatWest has delivered the kind of update bank investors can work with in a nervous market – not flawless, but profitable, well-capitalised and backed by better guidance,” said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown.
“The profit beat wasn’t really about a surge in income, but about cost discipline, lower litigation costs and strong capital generation doing the heavy lifting. That puts NatWest in a similar camp to some of the other banks this week, where the economic outlook is looking a little more fragile as Middle East tensions feed into oil, inflation, and rate uncertainty, but higher-for-longer rates are also providing a useful buffer.”
DCC was the top riser after rejecting a bid approach, with investors clearly hoping it’s not the end of interest in the company.
Yesterday, Phoenix Copper (LON: PXC) announced that NIU Invest, the 11.7% shareholder, withdrew its requisition notice for a general meeting, but no reason was given. The share price gained 9.09% to 1.2p.
Iodine producer Iofina (LON: IOF) continues its upward momentum following better than expected figures for 2025 and upgrades to future years. A new large iodine plant will start production later this year leading to a big rise in production in 2027. More plants are in the pipeline. X-ray demand for iodine is keeping the price high and Canaccord is anticipating it staying above $70/tonne. The share price rose a further 2.565 to 40p, having been as high as 41.5p.
Atome (LON: ATOM) finance director Robert Sheffrin bought 33,147 shares at 60p each. This follows his subscription of 57,482 shares in the recent fundraising at 60p/share. The share price improved 4.13% to 63p.
FALLERS
GenIP (LON: GNIP) is raising £350,000 at 7p/share and the cash will be used to fund new product development and additional staff. CMC has been appointed as joint broker. The share price declined by two-fifths to 6.75p.
ADM Energy (LON: ADME) is raising £375,000 at 0.02p/share. The cash will be spent on increasing the interest in Vega Upstream JV to 35%. That should increase monthly revenues by $111,000. Another 375 million shares are being issued to pay creditors. Capital Plus Partners has been appointed broker. The share price fell 14.3% to 0.03p.
ProService Building Services Marketplace (LON: PRO), formerly HSS Hire, says 2025-26 revenues from continuing operations is expected to be £248m, which is lower than forecast. That is due to a lower ramping up of the new arrangements with Speedy Hire and the weak construction market. The company is investing in further automation of its marketplace platform. Speedy Hire volumes are improving, and the deal should be earnings enhancing this year. Net debt was £27.2m at the end of March 2026 and debt should be refinanced by August. Guidance for 2026-27 EBITDA is between £9m and £12m. Consensus was previously £19.6m. The share price dipped 12.15 to 3.395p.
Shield Therapeutics (LON: STX) generated revenues of $18m in the first quarter of 2026 with ACCRUFeR making $9.9m and a $7.9m milestone payment from China. The US sales continue to grow, but NY-Medicaid now requires prior authorisation for prescription approvals. The share price slid 13.15 to 7.6p.
Mkango Resources (LON: MKA) has filed a technical report under NI 43-101 definitive feasibility study report for the Songwe Hill rare earths project in Malawi. Songwe Hill’s post-tax NPV10 is $339m and payback is 3.4 years. There was cash of $3.1m at the end of 2025 and subsequently raised £11.7m at 33p/share. The share price is 5.38% lower at 44p.
Analysis for informational purposes only. Capital at risk.
The Long Tail Wins: By delivering 80–90% of Western flagship capabilities at just 20% of the cost, Chinese AI models are commoditizing the API spot market. On leading aggregator platforms, Chinese models surged from a 10% token volume share in January to 36% by late April 2026, capturing the price-sensitive compute of developers, SMEs, and startups.
The Enterprise Walls: Despite spot market success, geopolitical and compliance friction prevent Chinese LLMs from penetrating Western blue-chip enterprises. Additionally, Chinese providers currently lack the “harness” depth—the sophisticated workflow orchestration, safety guardrails, and tool integration—required to rival products like Gemini and Claude Code.
The Energy Edge: As AI workloads shift from GPU-heavy training toward energy-intensive inference, power supply is becoming the new compute bottleneck. China added roughly 8x the generation capacity of the US in 2025, providing a structural scale advantage as inference demand accelerates.
The AI Market: Three Tiers, One Battleground
The global AI market divides into three distribution tiers.
Direct enterprise APIs and cloud wrappers, such as Azure, AWS, and Google, serve large organisations.
Product subscriptions such as ChatGPT Plus, Claude Code, and Gemini NotebookLM create loyalty through integration of models and harness: the interface, workflows, and integrations layered around the underlying model.
Undoubtedly, US providers hold commanding positions in both tiers.
The aggregator tier is structurally different.
Platforms like OpenRouter allow developers to route queries dynamically across hundreds of models in real time. No contracts. No lock-in.
This segment represents less than estimated 10% of global token volume. However, as it is the only segment operating as a genuine spot market, it is where competitive pressure surfaces first.
The Spot Market: 10% to 36% Share in Four Months
According to OpenRouter, a leading aggregator, major Chinese LLMs such as DeepSeek, Alibaba (Qwen), Moonshot (Kimi), MiniMax, etc, collectively captured a 36% market share of token volume in late April 2026, up from roughly 10% in early January.
Conversely, the combined share of major US hyperscalers dropped from 70% to 40% over the same period.
Source: OpenRouter, AP
Weekly token volume on OpenRouter has surged more than 3x in three months. Developers are running production workloads through Chinese models at scale.
Source: OpenRouter, AP
The mechanism is straightforward. Aggregators attract cost-sensitive developers and SMEs who use dynamic routing: simple, routine tasks go to the cheapest capable model; complex queries are reserved for premium US models.
Chinese LLMs have captured the bulk of that routine compute by delivering 80–90% of Western flagship performance at approximately 20% of the cost.
Source: OpenRouter, AP
The EV Playbook — and Its Second Chapter
This pricing strategy has a clear precedent.
Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers did not enter global markets by competing with BMW at the premium end. They commoditised good-enough transport: adequate range, functional design, accessible price. Volume followed. Then came the upmarket move — BYD now competes directly with European peers on performance, not just price.
Chinese AI is running the same sequence. Phase one is commoditisation of routine inference: capture the long tail of developer workloads that do not require frontier model capability. That phase is underway.
Phase two, moving upmarket into enterprise and application layers, is where the constraints currently exist.
Geopolitics and the Harness Barriers
Chinese LLMs face two barriers above the aggregator tier in the international market.
Compliance Wall: Western large enterprises hesitate to deploy Chinese LLMs due to compliance and data residency concerns. Chinese LLMs mitigate these concerns by making the model freely downloadable and allowing Western corporations to host it behind their firewalls. In addition, enterprises in emerging markets such as Middle East, Southeast Asia could potentially face less friction compared with Europe and the US.
The Harness Gap: Success at the application and subscription tier depends not on model quality alone but on the surrounding architecture: the UI, safety guardrails, tool integrations, agent orchestration, and memory systems layered around the model.
For example, Claude Code outperforms a standard OpenClaw setup, even if OpenClaw uses the same underlying Claude model, due to the sophistication of Anthropic’s harness.
The same logic applies to NotebookLM, GitHub Copilot, and ChatGPT’s ecosystem. Western providers have years of harness investment embedded in products that Chinese developers have not yet matched.
QClaw is Tencent’s attempt to narrow that gap. Built on the OpenClaw framework, it adds enterprise security features, one-click installation, and pre-configured agent workflows for marketing automation, trip planning, and tax filing. Tencent is currently piloting it for overseas deployment. It is not yet near Claude Code or NotebookLM. It signals that the upmarket move is beginning.
The Blueprint Leak: Anthropic’s Harness Moat Got Mapped
In late March 2026, Anthropic accidentally published the entire 512,000-line source code of Claude Code. The exposure included proprietary multi-agent orchestration protocols, memory consolidation architecture, and tool-calling subsystems, key success factors of its flagship product.
Competitors can now study the design behind the most commercially successful agentic harness in the market, potentially levelling the playing field.
The Energy Edge
Previously, the AI supply constraint was related to training: GPU-heavy model development consumes massive compute. That constraint disadvantages Chinese developers through export controls on advanced Nvidia chips.
The workload is now shifting. As autonomous agent deployments scale, inference dominates total AI compute. Inference is a different problem, relying more on memory bandwidth, network latency, and power supply. That shift moves the battleground toward AI infrastructure capacity.
Source: Deloitte, AP
China’s power infrastructure is built for this. In 2025, China added an estimated 540 GW of new generation capacity, approximately 8.5 times total US additions. That surplus translates directly into continuous, low-cost power for inference data centres at scale.
US and European hyperscalers face the opposite dynamic: protracted grid interconnection queues, transformer shortages, and planning constraints that create meaningful lag between capital commitment and operational capacity.
This article is a “periodical publication” for information only and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell securities. This article does not constitute a “personal recommendation” or “investment advice” under UK FCA regulations. Investing in equities involves significant risk. The author holds NO position in the securities mentioned. There is no warranty as to completeness or correctness. Please do your own due diligence or consult a licensed financial adviser. Please read the Full Disclaimer before acting on any information. Images created with the assistance of Gemini AI.
I got this stock wrong in early December 2024, when I estimated that its shares, then 70p, offered at least a 50% uplift in the short-term.
The subsequent rise has seen them hit 248p in late February this year, up 354%, they drifted back to 176p a month later, on understandable short-term profit-taking.
However, they are now on the up-tack again and look incredibly appealing.
The First Quarter Trading Update issued yesterday by the ASA International Group (LON:ASAI) showed real strength, while highlighting just...
Aurora Innovation shares jumped in US-trading yesterday after announcing it has materially expanded its agreement with refrigerated freight specialist Hirschbach Motor Lines, with the carrier signalling its intent to put 500 Aurora AV trucks on the road.
The non-binding MOU sets out a path for deliveries to begin in 2027, with binding terms expected to land later this year.
“The Aurora Driver will provide consistent 24/7 service to our customers, making it an important growth lever for our business,” said Richard Stocking, CEO of Hirschbach Motor Lines.
“But autonomy isn’t just a business move – it’s a quality-of-life investment for our people. The Aurora Driver will handle the lengthier, less desirable routes, providing our drivers with greater flexibility. It’s a win-win.”
For Aurora, this means potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in multi-year revenue and around 500 million driverless miles, representing a step-change in commercial traction.
For the autonomous vehicle industry, the deal is a major step towards broader mainstream adoption, paving the way not only for Aurora’s continued expansion but also for the technology’s adoption across a variety of self-driving applications.
Hirschbach will subscribe to Aurora’s Driver as a Service model, under which the carrier owns the trucks while Aurora collects recurring revenue from the autonomy stack.
The 500 trucks will be deployed across high-volume Sun Belt corridors, with Aurora having recently extended driverless deliveries into Laredo, Texas in support of one of Hirschbach’s key customers.
Apple shares rose in the pre-market after the iPhone maker announced strong quarterly results that beat analyst expectations, with iPhone sales propelling revenue higher.
Apple recorded quarterly revenue of $111.2 billion, up 17% compared to the same period a year ago. Analysts has predicted revenue of $109.66 billion.
Diluted earnings per share came in at $2.01, up 22%.
In recent years, sales of new iPhone releases haven’t been as strong as many investors would like to see, but the release of the 17 series has delivered this time around.
“iPhone achieved a March quarter revenue record, fueled by such extraordinary demand for the iPhone 17 lineup,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.
“During the quarter, Services achieved yet another all-time record, and we were excited to introduce remarkable new products to our strongest lineup ever. That included the addition of the iPhone 17e and the M4-powered iPad Air, along with the launch of MacBook Neo, which is captivating customers all around the world.”
While investors will be encouraged by recent iPhone sales, they may be more excited about what’s to come. For a plethora of reasons, Apple has fallen behind in the AI race. But this could all be about to change with Tim Cook’s departure and a new chapter for Apple that focuses more on AI.
“Apple’s long-awaited iPhone upgrade cycle is in full swing, and AI isn’t even part of the story yet,” said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown.
“The headline numbers were strong, but the real message was in the guidance, which pointed to 14-17% revenue growth at the group level, against pre-results expectations closer to 9%, and even that comes with supply constraints clipping the wings a little.
“This is the power of Apple’s ecosystem in full view: even with an AI experience that has been more disappointment than differentiator, the brand still has enough pull to drag loyal consumers back into the upgrade cycle after years of stretching out their old devices.
“That brand power has bought Apple time, but loyalty won’t last forever, and the next leg of the story now rests on whether John Ternus can turn AI from a weak spot into a reason to go out and grab the latest devices.”
