Palantir PLTR Surges 1.14% on $7.38B Volume as Defense Contracts Push Stock to 8th in U.S. Market Activity

On October 2, 2025, Palantir (PLTR) closed 1.14% higher, with a trading volume of $7.38 billion, ranking eighth in market activity across U.S. equities. The security's performance reflected renewed institutional interest in its data analytics platforms, particularly in defense and intelligence sectors where recent contract awards have bolstered growth expectations.

Analysts noted that the stock's momentum was supported by strategic partnerships with U.S. government agencies, including a multi-year contract to modernize defense data infrastructure. While no direct earnings catalysts were announced, the company's Q3 guidance highlighted progress in scaling enterprise AI deployments, which has historically driven valuation expansion in the sector.

To run this back-test cleanly I need to pin down a couple of practical details: 1. Universe Should we rank • all U.S. common stocks that have been listed each day, • only the S&P 500 constituents, or • another specific universe (e.g., Russell 3000, your own watch-list)? 2. Weighting method for the 500 names • Equal-weighted (every stock gets 0.2 % of the portfolio) – most common for this type of breadth test, or • Volume-weighted / market-cap weighted? 3. Execution price convention • Buy at today’s close and sell at tomorrow’s close (standard close-to-close test), or • Buy at tomorrow’s open and sell at tomorrow’s close (close-to-next-open entry)? 4. Benchmark (optional) • Compare against SPY, the equal-weighted S&P 500 (RSP), or leave out a benchmark? Once I have these four points, I can generate the daily trade list, feed it into the back-test engine and return the performance statistics and charts.