Earnings Preview: Will Oracle Live Up to Cautious Optimism?
After U.S. markets close on Monday, Oracle is scheduled to report quarterly results. It offered earnings surprises in the prior quarters, and price targets have been rising.
Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL | ORCL Price Prediction) is scheduled to report its fiscal fourth-quarter financial results on Monday. Analysts expect to see $1.58 in earnings per share (EPS) on $13.73 billion in revenue. That earnings estimate is the same as 60 days ago. The same period of last year had EPS of $1.54 and $11.84 billion in revenue. The company posted modest earnings surprises in the prior two quarters.
Over the past 52 weeks, the stock is up roughly 48%. However, it is up only closer to 31.5% year to date.
Despite a strong run, this top software stock is still offering a good entry point. Oracle develops, manufactures, markets, sells, hosts and supports database and middleware software, application software, cloud infrastructure, hardware systems and related services worldwide.
The company licenses its Oracle Database software to customers, which is designed to enable reliable and secure storage, retrieval and manipulation of various forms of data. Its Oracle Fusion Middleware software aims to build, deploy, secure, access and integrate business applications, as well as automate their business processes.
[nativounit]
Last year, Oracle and Cerner closed an agreement for the former to acquire the latter through an all-cash tender offer for $95 per share, or approximately $28.3 billion in equity value. Cerner is a leading provider of digital information systems used within hospitals and health systems to enable medical professionals to deliver better health care to individual patients and communities.
[wallst_email_signup]
A few analysts recently came out in favor of the stock:
- Barclays maintained a Buy rating and raised its price target to $113 from $85 on June 7.
- Jefferies maintained a Buy rating and raised its $105 price target to $125 on June 5.
- KeyCorp maintained an Overweight rating and raised its $98 price target to $105 on April 20.
- UBS maintained a Neutral rating but raised its price target to $90 from $87 on March 24.
[recirclink id=1255873]
The company currently offers a dividend of roughly 1.5%, or $1.60. It has a market cap of $290.2 billion.
Friday morning, shares of Oracle were trading up 2% at $109.67, in a 52-week range of $60.78 to $110.14. The consensus price target is $100.62, which implies downside of 6.4% from the most recent closing price of $107.48.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Chris Lange is a financial and geopolitical writer with more than a decade of experience covering a myriad of topics. He has published thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St., with past coverage focused heavily on stocks, IPOs, healthcare, defense, global affairs, and technology.
His work has been quoted, or referenced by a number of outlets including Business Insider, USA Today, Yahoo Finance, MSN, The Motley Fool, and many other publications. A graduate of Southwestern University, he studied business with a focus on investments and has previous experience in banking and startups.
When not reading or writing the news, he is following his passion for Lacrosse, playing chess, or building solar projects with his dad.
