Oracle share slump on sub-par forecasts

Oracle forecast sales and profit that missed analyst estimates on Wednesday, while saying that spending would rise by $15 billion compared with earlier estimates — a sign that big capital outlays to chase Al cloud-computing customers is not turning into profit as fast as Wall Street had expected.

- JUBY BABU STEPHEN NELLIS

An Oracle logo is seen on a smartphone screen.

(REUTERS)

Shares of the Austin, Texasbased company slumped 10% in extended trading.

Oracle has leapt to renewed prominence with grand plans to build AI cloud data centres, and its results are viewed as a sign of whether there is an Al bubble and how it will raise money to build that infrastructure.

Oracle said that adjusted profit for the current fiscal third quarter would be $1.64 to $1.68 per share, below analyst estimates of $1.72 per share, according to LSEG data. Oracle's third-quarter revenue growth forecast of between 16% and 18% also missed analyst estimates of 19.4% growth to $16.87 billion, according to LSEG data, and Oracle's entire forecast range of cloud sales growth also missed LSEG estimates of $8.87 billion.

At the same time, Oracle executives said that capital expenditures for fiscal 2026 are now expected to be $15 billion higher than the $35 billion figure the company estimated in September during its first-quarter earnings call.