By Senad Karaahmetovic
Shares of Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) are up nearly 14% in pre-open trading Tuesday after the company reported better-than-expected FQ4 results.
Oracle reported an adjusted EPS of $1.54 to top the $1.38 expected from the market analysts. Revenue came in at $11.84 billion, again better than the $11.66 billion consensus. The adjusted operating margin was reported at 47%, ahead of the estimate of 46.2%.
“We continued to improve our top line results again this quarter with total revenue growing 10% in constant currency,” said Oracle CEO, Safra Catz.
The company added that “consistent increases in our quarterly revenue growth rate typically have been driven by our market leading Fusion and NetSuite cloud applications.”
Shares were also boosted by the commentary on the call about the ability to sustain the recent organic momentum.
BMO analyst Keith Bachman cut the price target on ORCL stock to $86.00 per share from $92.00 to reflect multiple compression, although she is pleased with how the company performed in the previous quarter.
“We continue to believe that Oracle is well positioned, particularly for the current investment climate that focuses more on FCF valuations. Longer-term, with a focus on cost-cutting more so than revenue growth, Cerner could help with FCF generation. We maintain our Market Perform rating, though we retain our positive bias,” Bachman said in a note.
Stifel analyst Brad Reback noted that Oracle posted “its strongest top-line growth, 10% CC, in more than a decade.”
The analyst also moved lower on the price target, going from $83.00 to $72.00 on the Hold-rated shares.
“While the Cerner deal will likely prove to be a solid financial transaction for the company we do not believe it fundamentally changes Oracle's competitive position as the company continues to lose share in its core Infrastructure business to the hyperscalers and aggressive, high-growth, modern cloud first vendors,” Reback explained his Hold rating in a memo to clients.
Vital Knowledge analysts noted an “impressive” upside that will likely get “investors excited about Oracle becoming a more prominent member of the industry conversation.”