Oracle CEO Safra Catz speaks on the FII PRIORITY Summit in Miami Seashore, Florida, on Feb. 20, 2025.
Joe Raedle | Getty Pictures
Oracle shares loved their greatest week since 2001 as Wall Road cheered a powerful earnings report and bullish feedback on the corporate’s prospects in cloud computing.
The inventory jumped about 24% for the week, with virtually all of the positive factors coming within the two buying and selling days after the corporate’s quarterly earnings launch. The final time Oracle had a greater week was in April 2001, in the course of the dot-com crash, when so-called dead-cat bounces had been frequent. Throughout the prior quarter, Oracle shares misplaced virtually half their worth.
It is a a lot totally different firm in the present day, and whereas Oracle was typically considered as a late entrant into the cloud infrastructure market, the corporate has discovered a distinct segment and is seeing fast development serving to purchasers function synthetic intelligence fashions.
“Oracle is within the enviable place of getting extra demand than it may well fulfill,” Joseph Bonner, an analyst at Argus Analysis, wrote in a be aware to purchasers on Friday. He recommends shopping for the shares and lifted his worth goal to $235 from $200.
Oracle rose to a report on Friday, closing at $215.22.
Within the firm’s earnings report late Wednesday, income and earnings topped estimates. CEO Safra Catz mentioned gross sales for the brand new fiscal yr ought to are available above $67 billion, increased than LSEG’s $65.18 billion consensus.
“The demand is astronomical,” Larry Ellison, Oracle’s chairman instructed analysts on the earnings name. “However we’ve got to do that methodically. The rationale demand continues to outstrip provide is we will solely construct these knowledge facilities, construct these computer systems, so quick.”
Oracle has been enjoying catch-up in cloud to rivals Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
Within the 2025 fiscal yr, Oracle’s capital expenditures exceeded $21 billion, which is greater than the corporate spent from 2019 to 2024. The sum ought to attain $25 billion in fiscal 2026, Catz mentioned on the decision.
Google anticipates $75 billion in capital spending this yr. Microsoft’s goal for the fiscal yr is $80 billion.
Oracle’s consumer checklist now contains Meta, OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI. They’re among the many firms that require probably the most Nvidia graphics processing items to coach generative AI fashions that create textual content, photographs and movies in response to some phrases of human enter.
Startups Baseten, Bodily Intelligence and Huge Information are additionally cloud purchasers, Oracle introduced this week.
“We’ll construct and function extra cloud infrastructure knowledge facilities than all of our cloud infrastructure opponents mixed,” Ellison mentioned.
Oracle shares are up 29% to this point in 2025, whereas the Nasdaq is up lower than 1%. Among the many most extremely valued U.S. tech firms, the next-best performer for the yr is Meta, which is up round 17%.