New York, February 25, 2026, 17:11 ET — Trading after the bell.
- Oracle shares closed up and showed a small gain in after-hours trading.
- Oppenheimer lifted Oracle to Outperform, bumping the price target up to $185.
- Attention shifts to how Oracle will bankroll its cloud expansion, and what the upcoming earnings release might reveal.
Oracle shares edged higher late Wednesday, picking up after Oppenheimer boosted its rating on the software maker. The firm pointed to the recent selloff, saying it’s sharpened the setup for investors.
Oracle’s call arrives at a tricky juncture, with the market still wrestling with how to value a company ramping up spend to capture cloud and AI growth, while investors eye the balance sheet with some anxiety.
Cloud expansion alone isn’t the story anymore. Traders are focused on whether a handful of big clients will actually deliver reliable cash flow—quickly enough to cover the heavy funding burden.
Oracle ended regular trading with a 1.2% gain at $147.89, and ticked up another 0.2% after hours to $148.25. Shares seesawed from $147.35 to $153.26 during the day, with roughly 24.3 million shares changing hands. The stock tumbled 4.6% on Monday, then clawed back 3.4% Tuesday. The Nasdaq wrapped up about 1.3% higher.
Oppenheimer bumped Oracle up to Outperform from Perform, assigning a $185 price target. “While our call may be early … we see a favorable risk/reward after the stock’s multiples have been cut by more than half since September,” analyst Brian Schwartz said, pointing to valuation metrics like price-to-earnings. He called Oracle a “strong EPS compounder”—EPS stands for earnings per share—and maintained that the base case still lines up with earnings doubling by fiscal 2030. Schwartz also tagged Oracle as a “show me” story, saying the company still needs to execute to shift sentiment. Investing.com
The upgrade hasn’t put the main argument to rest. Oracle wants investors to overlook rising costs and instead pay attention to what it calls contracted demand stacking up in its cloud infrastructure segment.
Earlier this month, Oracle laid out plans to raise between $45 billion and $50 billion in gross proceeds in calendar 2026, aiming to fund Oracle Cloud Infrastructure buildouts for major clients such as AMD, Meta, Nvidia, OpenAI, TikTok and xAI. About half of that is slated to come via equity and equity-linked offerings—including a fresh at-the-market program that could reach $20 billion, letting the firm gradually sell shares. The balance would be raised through a single, investment-grade bond transaction. Oracle also pointed to a number of risks, from when and whether customers follow through on purchases or commitments, to potential delays or mishaps in constructing new data centers.
Oracle wrapped up a $25 billion notes sale on Feb. 4, according to a filing. The company intends to use the funds for general corporate needs—potentially capital expenditures, debt repayment, and other purposes.
Oracle, in a Feb. 2 filing, disclosed it had signed an underwriting agreement for the sale of 100 million depositary shares tied to a 6.50% mandatory convertible preferred stock. The deal wrapped up on Feb. 5.
Still, there’s not much margin for error. A dip in cloud demand, hesitancy from major clients, or harsher hits from financing costs and dilution—any of these could sap the stock’s momentum fast, putting the balance sheet right back in focus.
Oracle’s next earnings drop is set for March 9. Investors are zeroed in on signals about cloud demand, how fast customers are spending—and crucially, when that spend turns into cash flow.
