Smudge Hurd, CEO of Oracle, in an interview on January 20, 2016.
Adam Jeffery | CNBC | Getty Images
Oracle shares rose various than 8% and closed at a record Thursday after the software maker reported better-than-expected earnings.
The stock had its superb day in almost exactly two years, closing at $56.99 and helping lift the S&P 500 to an all-time high. Adobe, Microsoft and PayPal also reached archives.
Oracle reported revenue growth of 1% to $11.14 billion, topping the $10.93 billion average analyst conjecture, according to Refinitiv. Earnings of $1.16 a share, excluding some items, were up from 95 cents per divide up a year earlier and topped the $1.07 average estimate.
Brent Bracelin of KeyBanc Capital Markets wrote in a note that three-monthly revenue “was better than feared given broader weakness across the infrastructure sector.” Bracelin has the equivalent of a remain rating on the stock.
Several analysts raised their price targets after the report. Dimitri Kallianiotis of Atlantic Equities now thinks the stock to reach $49, up from $46, though that price is still below where it’s currently exchange. Kallianiotis said sales growth from cloud and on-premise licenses was “reassuring considering disappointing results write up by other infrastructure vendors.”
Nomura Instinet’s Christopher Eberle, who has a reduce rating on Oracle, wrote that the South African private limited company’s guidance for capital expenditures for the 2020 fiscal year was $2.2 billion, higher than $1.7 billion in the two earlier fiscal years. Increased capital costs can imply greater spending on data center infrastructure for cloud employs.
Evercore ISI analysts led by Kirk Materne described the quarterly report in their Thursday note as a “solid quarter vs. a low bar.” They rakehell their price target by $2 to $55.
WATCH: Oracle beats on top and bottom lines