Why Analysts Are Growing More Bullish on Oracle

March 18, 2017 by Chris Lange

Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) released its most recent financial results late on Wednesday, and the response was incredible. The stock was actually the best performing S&P 500 stock the following day. Investors weren’t the only ones thrilled with this report, which seems to be Oracle’s best report in recent memory. Practically every analyst that has Oracle in its coverage universe raised the price target in response to the report.

24/7 Wall St. has included some highlights from the earnings report, along with what analysts have said about Oracle afterward.

The tech giant said that it had $0.69 in earnings per share (EPS) and $9.21 billion in revenue, versus consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters that called for $0.62 in EPS and revenue of $9.26 billion. The same period of last year reportedly had EPS of $0.64 and $9.01 billion in revenue.

Short-term deferred revenues were $7.4 billion, up 7% in U.S. dollars and constant currency compared with last year.

Total cloud software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) revenues were $1.0 billion, up 73% in U.S. dollars and up 74% in constant currency. Also, total Cloud Revenues, including infrastructure as a service (IaaS), were $1.2 billion, up 62% in U.S. dollars and up 63% in constant currency. Total Cloud and On-Premise Software revenues were $7.4 billion, up 4% in U.S. dollars and up 5% in constant currency.

Quite a few analysts saw this earnings release and weighed in on Oracle, most growing much more bullish:

  • Barclays has an Overweight rating and raised its price target to $51 from $47.
  • BTIG Research reiterated a Buy rating with a $47 price target.
  • Deutsche Bank has a Hold rating and raised its price target to $44 from $40.
  • Drexel Hamilton has a Buy rating and upped its price target to $53 from $47.
  • Jefferies has a Buy rating and raised its price target from $51 to $52.
  • Morgan Stanley raised the price target to $47 from $43.
  • Merrill raised its price target to $54 from $48.
  • Raymond James raised its price target to $48 from $45.
  • JMP securities upgraded it to Market Perform from Underperform.
  • BMO raised its price target to $48 from $45.
  • UBS has a Buy rating and raised the price target from $45 to $48.
  • Goldman Sachs raised its price target to $49 from $47.
  • RBC raised the price target slightly to $47 from $46.
  • JPMorgan upgraded it to an Overweight rating from Neutral.
  • Wunderlich raised its price target to $46 from $43.

Shares of Oracle closed Friday at $45.66, with a consensus analyst price target of $44.36 and a 52-week trading range of $37.62 to $46.99. Over the course of the week the stock actually rose 7%.

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