Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) Downgraded by Melius Research to Hold

Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) was downgraded by stock analysts at Melius Research from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note issued to investors on Monday.

A number of other analysts have also issued reports on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on shares of Oracle from $350.00 to $275.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, December 11th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft restated a “buy” rating and issued a $375.00 target price on shares of Oracle in a research note on Wednesday, November 26th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Oracle to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 12th. Robert W. Baird decreased their price objective on shares of Oracle from $365.00 to $315.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, November 18th. Finally, Bank of America decreased their target price on Oracle from $368.00 to $300.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, December 11th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have given a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Oracle has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $298.43.

Oracle Trading Up 9.2%

Shares of Oracle stock traded up $13.16 during trading hours on Monday, reaching $155.98. The stock had a trading volume of 11,630,084 shares, compared to its average volume of 26,102,729. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $188.76 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $234.05. The firm has a market capitalization of $448.14 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.40, a P/E/G ratio of 1.25 and a beta of 1.64. Oracle has a 1 year low of $118.86 and a 1 year high of $345.72. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.28.

Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 10th. The enterprise software provider reported $2.26 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.64 by $0.62. Oracle had a net margin of 25.28% and a return on equity of 70.60%. The company had revenue of $16.06 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.19 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.47 earnings per share. Oracle’s revenue for the quarter was up 14.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Oracle will post 5 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Oracle

In other Oracle news, CEO Clayton M. Magouyrk sold 10,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, December 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $192.52, for a total transaction of $1,925,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 144,030 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $27,728,655.60. This trade represents a 6.49% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Mark Hura sold 15,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $196.89, for a total value of $2,953,350.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 234,077 shares in the company, valued at $46,087,420.53. This represents a 6.02% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 62,223 shares of company stock valued at $12,136,764. 40.90% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Oracle by 3.5% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 174,802,084 shares of the enterprise software provider’s stock valued at $34,070,674,000 after purchasing an additional 5,841,584 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its stake in Oracle by 1.7% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 73,459,391 shares of the enterprise software provider’s stock valued at $16,060,427,000 after buying an additional 1,252,723 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors raised its holdings in Oracle by 1.2% in the 3rd quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 23,310,827 shares of the enterprise software provider’s stock worth $6,555,961,000 after acquiring an additional 266,588 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Oracle during the 2nd quarter worth $4,275,378,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its holdings in Oracle by 0.8% during the third quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 11,938,457 shares of the enterprise software provider’s stock valued at $3,357,572,000 after acquiring an additional 98,693 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 42.44% of the company’s stock.

Key Stories Impacting Oracle

Here are the key news stories impacting Oracle this week:

• Positive Sentiment: DA Davidson upgraded ORCL from Neutral to Buy and set a $180 price target, implying roughly 25.8% upside from the recent $143 area, which could attract bargain hunters. Benzinga
• Positive Sentiment: Several bullish pieces note Oracle’s long-term AI and data-center investments could pay off and that the stock is deeply oversold — narratives that may support a tactical rebound for value/contrarian buyers. Fool: 2 Leading Tech Stocks to Buy
• Neutral Sentiment: Big-tech weakness is broad-based — CNBC reports the sector is pausing after a >$1T sell-off, which likely explains part of ORCL’s pressure independent of company-specific news. CNBC
• Neutral Sentiment: Company-agnostic coverage (e.g., MarketBeat contrarian lists) includes ORCL as an oversold software name — supportive for long-term investors but unlikely to reverse near-term selling alone. MarketBeat
• Negative Sentiment: Forbes highlights a 13% five-day slide driven by concerns over AI-infrastructure liabilities, bondholder litigation and possible AI-driven disruption to core software revenue — these are substantive worries that can weigh on multiple quarters of sentiment. Forbes
• Negative Sentiment: Legal risk: multiple law firms (Rosen; Robbins Geller) are soliciting holders for class-action claims tied to Oracle’s senior note offerings — ongoing litigation and potential settlements raise uncertainty and could pressure the stock. GlobeNewswire – ROSEN
• Negative Sentiment: Media commentary (Jim Cramer/Yahoo/InsiderMonkey) calling Oracle’s balance sheet “from hell” and analysts trimming targets (Citizens cut PT to $285 from $342) amplify the negative narrative and could sustain selling pressure. Yahoo Finance

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.