Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) Shares Up 3.1% – Here’s What Happened

Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL)’s stock price traded up 3.1% during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $146.69 and last traded at $145.75. 21,592,629 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 25% from the average session volume of 28,754,443 shares. The stock had previously closed at $141.32.

Key Headlines Impacting Oracle

Here are the key news stories impacting Oracle this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Bernstein analyst Mark Moerdler reportedly maintained a bullish outlook and expects Oracle to eventually retest its record high. Recent analyst targets remain well above the current share price, including a $325 target from Bernstein and a $240 target from TD Cowen, which retained a Buy rating. Analyst revises Oracle stock price target
• Positive Sentiment: Oracle’s cloud and AI demand remains the central bullish argument. Cloud revenue reportedly grew 47%, while remaining performance obligations reached $638 billion, up 363% year over year. The backlog provides significant multiyear revenue visibility, although conversion will take time. Oracle has $638 billion of contracted backlog
• Positive Sentiment: Investors are also looking for a possible earnings beat, supported by Oracle’s history of exceeding estimates and strong demand for cloud capacity. Next week’s results will be an important test of whether the AI investment cycle is accelerating reported growth. AI trade faces test with next week’s Oracle earnings

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ORCL has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Sanford C. Bernstein reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Oracle in a research report on Wednesday. Wedbush decreased their price target on shares of Oracle from $275.00 to $240.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, June 11th. Arete Research set a $255.00 price target on Oracle and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, May 7th. Moffett Nathanson set a $325.00 price objective on Oracle in a research report on Thursday, June 11th. Finally, Guggenheim reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Oracle in a report on Thursday, July 23rd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have assigned a Buy rating, eight have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $261.61.

Oracle Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.21, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $139.73 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $160.44. The firm has a market cap of $419.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.00, a P/E/G ratio of 0.93 and a beta of 1.74.

Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, June 10th. The enterprise software provider reported $2.11 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.96 by $0.15. The firm had revenue of $19.18 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $19.10 billion. Oracle had a net margin of 25.37% and a return on equity of 58.62%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 20.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.70 earnings per share. Oracle has set its Q1 2027 guidance at 1.720-1.760 EPS and its FY 2027 guidance at 8.050-8.050 EPS. On average, research analysts forecast that Oracle Corporation will post 6.49 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Oracle Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, July 24th. Stockholders of record on Friday, July 10th were given a dividend of $0.50 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, July 10th. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.4%. Oracle’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 34.31%.

Insider Activity at Oracle

In other news, Vice Chairman Jeffrey Henley sold 400,000 shares of Oracle stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, June 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $159.16, for a total value of $63,664,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 400,000 shares in the company, valued at approximately $63,664,000. This trade represents a 50.00% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders own 40.90% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Oracle

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in ORCL. California State Teachers Retirement System raised its stake in Oracle by 14,636.4% during the second quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 382,756,945 shares of the enterprise software provider’s stock worth $56,093,030,000 after acquiring an additional 380,159,589 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Oracle in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $4,336,031,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new position in shares of Oracle during the second quarter valued at approximately $1,911,930,000. Capital Research Global Investors grew its holdings in shares of Oracle by 29.3% during the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 30,137,126 shares of the enterprise software provider’s stock valued at $5,874,070,000 after purchasing an additional 6,826,299 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Cardano Risk Management B.V. lifted its holdings in shares of Oracle by 882.3% in the 4th quarter. Cardano Risk Management B.V. now owns 4,991,010 shares of the enterprise software provider’s stock worth $972,798,000 after purchasing an additional 4,482,934 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 42.44% of the company’s stock.

Oracle Company Profile

Oracle Corporation is a multinational technology company that develops and sells database software, cloud engineered systems, enterprise software applications and related services. The company is widely known for its flagship Oracle Database and a portfolio of enterprise-grade software products that support data management, application development, analytics and middleware. Over recent years Oracle has expanded its focus to include cloud infrastructure and cloud applications, positioning itself as a provider of both platform and software-as-a-service solutions for large organizations.

Oracle’s product and service offerings include Oracle Database and the Autonomous Database, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), enterprise resource planning (ERP), human capital management (HCM) and supply chain management (SCM) cloud applications (often grouped under Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications), middleware such as WebLogic, and developer technologies including Java and MySQL.