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Oracle Corp. closed at session lows Wednesday as analysts debated whether the software company’s struggles to advance its next-generation products were a result of the COVID-19 pandemic or part of a larger problem of being outmaneuvered by competitors.
Late Tuesday, Oracle ORCL, -5.62% ORCL, -5.62% reported revenue that fell short of Wall Street estimates, citing deals delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and an outlook range that bookended the consensus, with Chief Executive Safra Catz stating the company was “at a point where our growing businesses are now larger than our declining businesses and this favorable shift will inevitably drive revenue acceleration going forward.”
Oracle shares, which touched an intraday low of $51.50, closed down 5.6% at $51.52 Wednesday, while the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.36% declined 0.4% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.14% advanced 0.2%.
Analysts appeared to focus on sales for Oracle’s Autonomous Database and its OCI-Gen2 public cloud.
Stifel analyst Brad Reback, who has a hold rating and raised his price target to $48 from $44, said that while Oracle remained optimistic about Autonomous Database and OCI-Gen2, “we remain cautious given the nearly insurmountable lead” that Amazon.com Inc.’s AMZN, +0.98% AWS and Microsoft Corp.’s MSFT, +0.34% Azure “have in the hyperscale cloud.”
Reback observed that Oracle’s annual capital expenditures in this cloud area is roughly equivalent to one month of Microsoft cap-ex.
“Net/net, given the diverse (and legacy) collection of assets in Oracle’s portfolio, we remain skeptical that newer focus areas can accelerate growth,” Reback said.
Jefferies analyst Brent Thill, who has a hold rating and a $55 price target on Oracle, said the company’s “lackluster performance stands out against what is evidently a very supportive software spending environment looking at peer metrics.”
Thill said Oracle’s stock performance lags behind Microsoft and the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF IGV, year-to-date, “and we see limited reason for that to change in the absence of a [near-term] catalyst.” For the year, Oracle shares are down nearly 3% while Microsoft’s are up 23% and the IGV is up 18%.
Cowen analyst J. Derrick Wood, who has an outperform rating and $60 price target, was a little more forgiving, saying he was encouraged by Oracle’s outlook and that he believed the company’s database and cloud products were building momentum and scale.
Citing a “growing traction” in Autonomous Database and an “inflection in Gen2 OCI starting to take hold,” Wood said he gets the sense “the latter two developments were gaining steam prior to the pandemic, and if the macro improves we think they could become more significant growth catalysts.”
Oracle forecast adjusted fiscal first-quarter earnings of 84 cents to 88 cents a share with revenue either increasing or declining by 1%, meaning to a range of $9.13 billion to $9.31 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet, who had forecast earnings of 85 cents a share on revenue of $9.05 billion before the outlook, on Wednesday were calling for earnings, on average, of 86 cents a share on revenue of $9.13 billion.
JPMorgan analyst Mark Murphy, who has an overweight rating and a $57 price target, said he doesn’t think the pandemic-affected fourth quarter changed things materially for Oracle “one way or the other,” and said it was “nice to see that at least Oracle met its EPS target.”
“As we move past the COVID-19 impacts, we expect Oracle to continue to show resiliency as it starts to benefit from the favorable mix shift in its business and as such, we expect the multiple to rerate higher from current levels,” Murphy said.
