Why Planet Labs Soared Today
The 240 million euro agreement expands Planet Labs' role in European defense and security, building on recent contracts with U.S. agencies.
The company occupies a unique niche with high growth potential, but investors should be aware of risks such as possible share dilution.
10 stocks we like better than Planet Labs Pbc ›
Shares of Planet Labs (NYSE: PL) climbed on Thursday, closing up 11.2% as of the 1 p.m. ET early market close for the Fourth of July holiday. The rise comes as the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) and Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) gained 0.8% and 1%, respectively.
Planet Labs, a satellite imaging company, signed a major deal earlier this week that is continuing to boost shares.
The company announced on Tuesday that it has signed a deal with the German government to provide satellite imagery and geospatial data "in support of European peace and security." The multiyear, 240 million euro agreement also includes artificial intelligence (AI)-powered intelligence from the imagery and data Planet Labs provides.
The deal marks a major step in the company's push into Europe and defense and security-related applications. In a statement, Will Marshall, CEO and co-founder of Planet Labs, said of the deal, "With the changing geopolitical landscape, the demand for sovereign access to geospatial intelligence is more urgent than ever before, and Planet's satellite services model is uniquely designed to enable large area security monitoring."
This could be the first of many such deals, as countries across Europe commit to increasing defense spending after last month's NATO summit.
Although the contracts are smaller in scope, this month saw the company announce several other significant contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Navy.
Although the stock is not cheap and investors should be aware of possible dilution as the company raises money to fund growth, I think Planet Labs is a good pick for those with a high risk tolerance. The company operates in a unique niche that has a lot of potential.
Before you buy stock in Planet Labs Pbc, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Planet Labs Pbc wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $692,914!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $963,866!*
Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,049% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 179% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join .
See the 10 stocks »
*Stock Advisor returns as of June 30, 2025
Johnny Rice has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Why Planet Labs Soared Today was originally published by The Motley Fool
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Bloomberg
11 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
German Factory Orders Slump as US Trade Talks Enter Home Stretch
German factory orders dropped for the first time in four months as businesses at home were wary of committing to large investments before uncertainty over trade with the US is resolved. Demand fell 1.4% from the previous month in May, the statistics office said Friday. That's worse than all but one estimate in a Bloomberg survey. Orders were still up 5.3% from a year ago.
Bloomberg
16 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
One Year of Starmer as UK PM: Where Does Labour Stand?
00:00 Some degree of calm has returned, at least for the markets in Britain, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves underlining her commitment to fiscal discipline and reassurances about her position in the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. Now the market moves have really underscored the fragility of Britain's economic position as the Labour Party marked one year in power. Let's get more now from Bloomberg opinions. Rosa Prince Good morning, Rose. We've seen the Labour Party promising to make growth its top mission. So really, as we review this first year in office for Starmer, how is the party doing so far? Yeah, not so great. As you say, I think I thought that they could put everything into growth as a way of balancing those books. But it's easier said than done. You can't just press a button and suddenly achieve growth. So there are some measures which have been successful. They've put through some planning reforms and greenlit a lot of infrastructure projects, which I think they hope will achieve growth in the longer term. Shorter term, not so much, particularly that budget that Rachel Rees herself unveiled back in the autumn, which really hit businesses hard and led to a lack of investment, a lack of job creation. And the figures speak for themselves, really. I think we're on course for growth of about an anemic 1%. And what have been the winners this year? Yeah. It's not been all bad. I think if you had asked Keir Starmer at the start of his term whether he thought he'd do better on the domestic front or the foreign well around, I think he would have said domestically. But in fact, it's he's proved rather a and adept world leader. He's handled President Trump in particular better than most other world leaders. Britain has signed three important trade deals India, the European Union, and that trade deal with America and I think has been the only country so far to manage to mitigate some of those tariffs he's been talking about this morning. So that's probably the big policy win from him. And of course, we've got to talk about the chaos this week, Rose. The drama really centering around Starmer's U-turn, forced U-turn on welfare reform. But there've been a series of walk backs recently. Looking ahead, what are the challenges that he's going to face in terms of seeing through his big agenda? I think the major challenge and the thing that everything comes back to really is that this government is so boxed in on it's room for maneuver on the economy. So as we were saying, he had wanted to get some growth going in the British economy and really be able to fund those projects that he cares about, like improving public services. The growth hasn't come. They had hoped then to make the numbers add up by doing some public sector cuts. And as the welfare reform debacle showed this week, that's proved harder than they expected as well. So that really leaves only breaking the borrowing rules, which Rachel Reeves again committed to not doing. She says that she will continue to balance the budget and that borrowing will not rise. Then we've only got tax rises left, which again is the last thing that this Labour government wanted to do. So going forward, they've got a budget coming down the track. Then again, we don't know exactly when, but it'll probably be at the end of October or early November and the difficult choices are coming. And I wonder, Rachel Reeves was finding the pressure really quite tough.
Bloomberg
17 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
ECB Rates in Good Place, Committed to 2% Goal, Lagarde Tells ARD
The European Central Bank current interest-rate position is appropriate and the institution is fully committed to its 2% inflation target, President Christine Lagarde told ARD. 'Our determination, our commitment, our duty is to keep price stability — and price stability is around 2% inflation,' she told the public broadcaster on Friday. 'We have delivered, inflation is measured at 2%, and we will continue doing so.'
