Oracle Stock Today (ORCL): Blue Owl Funding Snag Puts $10B Michigan AI Data Center in Spotlight — News, Forecasts, and Analyst Outlook (Dec. 17, 2025)

Dec. 17, 2025 — Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL) is back in the market’s crosshairs after fresh reporting raised questions about financing for a marquee AI data center project tied to OpenAI. Shares were down about 3.8% at $181.45 in mid-session trading on Wednesday, after an intraday low near $180.93.

The move extends a volatile stretch for Oracle stock following a week of intense debate around two competing narratives:

A massive AI backlog (Oracle’s “remaining performance obligations,” or RPO, recently disclosed at $523 billion) that could underpin years of cloud growth. ^[1]
A balance-sheet stress test, as Oracle accelerates capital spending to build the compute and data center footprint needed to deliver those contracts. ^[2]

Below is a full round-up of the current Oracle stock news, forecasts, and analyses circulating on Dec. 17, 2025, plus what investors are watching next.

Today’s Oracle stock headlines at a glance

1) Blue Owl reportedly won’t back a $10B Michigan data center deal

Reuters reported Wednesday that Blue Owl Capital, Oracle’s largest data center partner, will not back a planned $10 billion deal for Oracle’s next facility, citing a Financial Times report and pointing to rising concerns about Oracle’s debt and AI spending. ^[3]

The Financial Times reporting adds color: the project is described as a $10 billion, 1-gigawatt data center development in Saline Township, Michigan, tied to Oracle’s push to supply OpenAI with large-scale computing capacity, and the report says Oracle has been exploring other financial partners (including mentions of Blackstone interest) as negotiations tightened. ^[4]

2) Oracle pushes back, saying talks are “on schedule”

A Bloomberg item published today said Oracle told Bloomberg that final negotiations on an equity deal for the Michigan data center are “on schedule.” ^[5]

That statement matters because the stock’s reaction function right now is hypersensitive to anything that looks like a slowdown in AI-campus financing, construction timelines, or customer commitments.

3) WSJ analysis: the “squishy” number moving ORCL is RPO

The Wall Street Journal’s analysis today focuses on how RPO—a backlog-style metric that can be “probable” but not perfectly certain—has become the key driver behind Oracle’s dramatic swing since September. The WSJ notes Oracle’s RPO surged to $523 billion (as of Nov. 30, 2025), with a major portion linked to OpenAI, and says the stock has since fallen sharply from its earlier spike as investors debate collectibility and execution risk. ^[6]

4) Fresh price-target commentary: Citizens reiterates $342

On the forecasts front, Citizens maintained a “Market Outperform” rating and a $342 price target in a note published early Wednesday, arguing that headline readings of Oracle’s credit risk and cloud infrastructure model can be overly simplistic. The firm also discussed Oracle’s ability to use project finance structures tied to contract duration. ^[7]

5) Macro backdrop: Oracle weakness shows up in broader market coverage

Oracle’s slide was also referenced in broader U.S. market coverage, with Reuters pointing to the data center funding story as one reason weighing on the stock as investors monitored macro policy signals. ^[8]

Why Oracle stock is moving: the Michigan project is a proxy for the whole AI thesis

Oracle’s AI narrative has increasingly become an infrastructure story—less about traditional enterprise software stability and more about whether the company can finance, build, and monetize hyperscale-grade cloud capacity fast enough.

Today’s Blue Owl development hits a sensitive nerve because it’s not “just one data center.” It’s a real-time test of:

Partner appetite to finance giant AI campuses under tighter lending terms
Oracle’s ability to diversify funding sources (banks, private capital, leases, project finance) without spooking equity and credit markets
Delivery confidence for OpenAI-linked capacity that has been central to the market’s bull case

Reuters’ summary of the FT report explicitly frames the issue this way: growing concern about Oracle’s rising debt and AI spending is influencing how partners view the next wave of buildouts. ^[9]

Oracle’s response, and why it matters after last week’s “delay” scare

This isn’t the first time in recent days that the market has fixated on whether Oracle’s AI expansion is slipping.

On Dec. 12, Reuters reported Oracle denied a Bloomberg News report suggesting delays in OpenAI-related data centers. Oracle spokesperson Michael Egbert told Reuters that “There have been no delays… and all milestones remain on track,” adding Oracle remains aligned with OpenAI and confident in execution. ^[10]

Now, on Dec. 17, Bloomberg’s update that equity negotiations are “on schedule” is being interpreted in the same spirit: Oracle is trying to keep investors focused on continuity—contracts signed, financing progressing—rather than on the friction points (labor, materials, power, permitting, and capital markets) that can slow big infrastructure programs. ^[11]

The fundamental backdrop: Oracle’s $523B RPO vs. a $50B capex plan

To understand why each data-center headline moves ORCL, you have to look at the scale Oracle itself has put on the table.

What Oracle reported in its most recent results

In its fiscal 2026 Q2 release (dated Dec. 10), Oracle reported:

Remaining Performance Obligations (RPO): $523 billion, up 438% year over year
Total revenue: $16.1 billion, up 14%
Cloud revenue (IaaS + SaaS): $8.0 billion, up 34%
Cloud Infrastructure (IaaS): $4.1 billion, up 68%
Non-GAAP EPS: $2.26, up 54% ^[12]

Those are big growth numbers for Oracle’s cloud segments—and they’re the reason bullish analysts argue Oracle is finally scaling into a serious cloud infrastructure competitor.

What rattled the stock: guidance and spending pace

But Reuters’ earnings coverage made clear why the market didn’t simply celebrate the growth:

Oracle forecast fiscal Q3 adjusted profit of $1.64–$1.68 per share, below analysts’ expectations cited by Reuters (LSEG data)
Oracle guided for 16%–18% revenue growth, also below Street expectations cited by Reuters
Oracle said fiscal 2026 capex expectations rose by $15 billion versus the prior figure (moving from roughly $35B to about $50B) ^[13]

In other words: the backlog is enormous, but the “show me” phase is here—how quickly does that backlog become revenue and free cash flow, and how much balance-sheet strain comes first?

The RPO debate: why “backlog” can be both bullish and unsettling

RPO is meant to represent contracted revenue expected to be recognized in the future, but it’s not the same thing as next quarter’s sales. And that nuance is what today’s WSJ analysis zeroes in on: the metric is powerful, but not perfectly “hard,” and investors are arguing about what portion is truly bankable and how fast it converts. ^[14]

Reuters’ Dec. 10 earnings story adds another detail: even after the jump to $523B, that figure was slightly below the analyst estimate Reuters cited (Visible Alpha data referenced by Reuters). ^[15]

That’s why Oracle stock has been trading less like a mature software company and more like an AI infrastructure name—where execution, financing, and timing matter as much as demand.

Forecasts and price targets circulating today: big upside, big disagreement

Oracle is currently living in one of the widest “target spreads” you’ll see among mega-cap tech names: many analysts see huge upside if the AI build-out works, while others warn the path could be rough (and dilutive) if debt and capex stay elevated.

Here are the most newsworthy Dec. 17 forecast items:

Citizens: Market Outperform, $342 target

Citizens reiterated a Market Outperform rating and kept a $342 price target, addressing concerns about credit-default swap spreads and arguing the situation is more complex than the headline framing. The note also discusses the idea that Oracle can finance projects in ways aligned to contract duration, depending on structure and counterparties. ^[16]

HSBC via MarketWatch: $364 target, “next leg of the AI trade”

MarketWatch reported an HSBC analyst view that investor attention could rotate toward “unloved” software names as AI adoption moves deeper into enterprise applications—citing Oracle among the beneficiaries. HSBC’s analyst is reported to forecast 25%+ EPS growth annually over a multi-year window and assigns a $364 price target. ^[17]

Street-wide revisions: cuts after earnings, but bullish targets still exist

The Investing.com coverage of the Citizens note also lists a series of post-earnings target changes (RBC, Piper Sandler, UBS, Evercore ISI, Mizuho), underscoring how quickly the Street recalibrated after capex guidance rose. ^[18]

Near-term earnings forecasts: Zacks consensus referenced by Nasdaq

Nasdaq’s “Pre-Market Most Active” list highlighted ORCL trading heavily and cited a consensus EPS forecast of $1.35 for the fiscal quarter ending Feb. 2026, with recent upward revisions noted in that item. ^[19]

How to read this spread: Oracle’s bull case is a “scale story” (OCI turns backlog into revenue, then margins), while the bear case is a “financing story” (capex and debt rise faster than profits and cash flow).

Where valuation and credit anxiety enter the story

A key reason Oracle headlines are spilling out of tech pages and into credit-market commentary is that investors are watching debt and default insurance pricing move alongside the stock.

Reuters reported last week that Oracle’s debt-fueled AI build-out pushed investors toward credit-default swaps, and also noted Oracle’s forward P/E was around 29.56, comparable to mega-cap peers cited in the same piece (LSEG-compiled data referenced by Reuters). ^[20]

Meanwhile, Oracle’s own earnings coverage captured the market’s mood in one quote: Visible Alpha’s research lead told Reuters that “the ramp in capex and unclear debt needs are causing uncertainty among investors.” ^[21]

What bulls say: Oracle is becoming a real AI cloud platform, not just a database company

The optimistic interpretation goes like this:

Demand is real — Oracle’s cloud infrastructure growth rate (68% in Q2) suggests the company is winning workloads, not merely talking about them. ^[22]
Backlog creates visibility — $523B of RPO implies years of contracted runway if conversion holds. ^[23]
Capex is front-loaded — a classic “build now, harvest later” play, potentially producing operating leverage when utilization rises.

Some market commentary leans into this value-gap framing. For example, a Seeking Alpha analysis published today argues Oracle’s valuation has become dislocated relative to its backlog (while also flagging liquidity and capex risks). ^[24]

What bears say: the risk isn’t demand—it’s execution, timing, and financing

The skeptical view is not that AI demand disappears, but that Oracle may be forced into:

More leverage or more complex financing than equity investors expected
Delays (permitting, power, labor/material constraints) that defer revenue recognition
Customer concentration risk, with OpenAI’s scale dominating the narrative and, potentially, Oracle’s capital allocation decisions

That’s why today’s Blue Owl report hit hard: it suggests lenders and private capital partners may be negotiating tougher terms, especially for projects perceived as riskier or delay-prone—exactly the sort of friction that can change the economics of AI campuses. ^[25]

What to watch next for Oracle stock

If you’re tracking Oracle stock into year-end and early 2026, the next catalysts are likely to be very specific—and very headline-driven:

Financing clarity on the Michigan site
Any confirmation of the final equity partner, the structure, and the timeline could swing sentiment quickly—especially after today’s conflicting “in limbo” vs. “on schedule” narratives. ^[26]
Updates on AI campus delivery milestones
After Oracle’s Dec. 12 denial of delay claims, the market will watch for tangible delivery updates rather than assurances. ^[27]
Capex, free cash flow, and debt trajectory
Oracle’s own guidance reset expectations for spending. The next earnings cycle will likely be judged heavily on whether financing plans look stable and repeatable. ^[28]
Backlog conversion signals
Investors will keep parsing RPO quality and conversion pace—an issue front-and-center in today’s WSJ analysis. ^[29]