NEW YORK, Jan 3, 2026, 10:20 ET — Market closed
- Oracle shares closed up 0.4% on Friday, while the S&P 500 and Dow ended slightly higher.
- The stock outperformed some enterprise software peers that fell sharply in the session.
- Investors are still weighing Oracle’s AI-driven cloud demand against heavy spending on new data-center capacity.
Oracle Corp shares ended Friday up $0.80, or 0.4%, at $195.71, a modest gain on Wall Street’s first trading day of 2026.
The move matters because Oracle is still being priced as a high-stakes cloud buildout story: investors want proof that fast-growing artificial intelligence demand can translate into durable cash generation. Oracle’s recent results underscored that tug-of-war, pairing rapid cloud growth with elevated investment needs. 1
With U.S. equity markets closed for the weekend, traders are looking ahead to near-term calendar items — including Oracle’s January dividend timetable — for clues on sentiment and positioning into the next earnings cycle. 2
Broader markets offered a steady backdrop on Friday. The S&P 500 rose 0.2% and the Dow gained 0.7%, while the Nasdaq was nearly flat, according to the Associated Press. 3
Oracle also held up better than several software peers. Salesforce slid 4.3% and ServiceNow fell 3.8% in the session, MarketWatch data showed. 4
The company’s latest major catalyst remains its fiscal second-quarter update on Dec. 10. Oracle said quarterly revenue rose 14% to $16.1 billion and cloud revenue climbed 34% to $8.0 billion, while remaining performance obligations — a measure of contracted revenue not yet recognized — jumped to $523 billion. “We are now committed to a policy of chip neutrality,” Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison said. 1
Investors have focused on the spending required to support that backlog. Oracle said in December that fiscal 2026 capital expenditures — money spent on data centers and equipment — were expected to be $15 billion higher than its September estimates, with much of that tied to OpenAI-related capacity, Reuters reported. 5
Oracle shares remain far below their recent peak. The stock’s 52-week range is $118.86 to $345.72, according to Yahoo Finance — putting Friday’s close about 43% below the 52-week high. 6
Before the next session, the macro backdrop is likely to stay in the frame for tech and AI-linked names. Treasury yields moved higher on Friday as markets looked ahead to next week’s U.S. employment data and other delayed indicators, Reuters reported. 7
Before the next session, Oracle’s nearer-term corporate markers include its dividend record date and payment date. A company filing said the $0.50-per-share dividend is payable on Jan. 23 to shareholders of record as of Jan. 9. 2
Oracle has also said its fiscal third-quarter earnings will be announced in mid-March. Investors will be watching for any update on the pace of cloud infrastructure demand, and whether spending levels begin to align more closely with revenue growth. 8
Technically, traders have been keying off round-number levels after choppy trading since mid-December. ORCL traded between $194.21 and $198.59 on Friday, and a move back above $200 would mark a break above late-December highs, while a slip below the recent $190 area would put December’s lows back in view, Investing.com data showed. 9
