Veteran trader makes bold move with Palantir, Rocket Lab and SoFi originally appeared on TheStreet.

Admiral Ackbar knew when it was time to bail.

The amphibious military commander of the Rebel Alliance achieved meme immortality when he uttered the fateful phrase "It's a trap!" in "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi," after learning that the Death Star was fully operational and open for murderous business.

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TheStreet Pro's Stephen Guilfoyle isn't so sure.

While the veteran trader doesn't have to contend with a planet-destroying space station, he does invest in stocks, which on some days can be scary enough to make Darth Vader cry for his mommy.

Guilfoyle, whose career dates back to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in the 1980s, invoked the Ackbar meme in a recent column following the stock market rally on May 29.

"Is this a trap?" he asked. "The answer is definitely 'maybe.'"

Stocks surged after the Court of International Trade struck down President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff agenda on the grounds that he had overstepped his authority. A federal appeals court quickly paused the decision.

"That certainly tempered any enthusiasm that had existed, though I must say that most human traders had expected a quick appeal," Guilfoyle said. "The early-morning surge had something of a hollow, algorithm-driven feel to it."

As far as trading goes, well, Guilfoyle did something he doesn't usually do: He took some money off the table without reaching specific levels.

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"I did not cancel any target prices and still have large, long positions in several of my favorite names, but I used late-afternoon and after-hours strength and took an extra round of profit-taking across some of my beloved 'Stocks Under $10' plays, namely Palantir Technologies, Rocket Lab USA, and SoFi Technologies."

So what's going on with these companies?

Well, the Trump administration is expanding Palantir's  (PLTR)  work with the federal government, according to The New York Times.

The big-data-analytics-software provider has received more than $113 million in federal spending since Trump took office, including additional funds from current contracts as well as new ones with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon.

These do not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week. That money has not been spent.