NEW YORK, March 12, 2026, 09:10 EDT
Oracle finished March 11 at $163.12, surging 9.18% after the company raised its fiscal 2027 revenue outlook and pointed to sustained demand for AI-driven cloud services. That jump wiped out recent losses for the stock.
Oracle’s been feeling the squeeze from the hefty price tag on AI data centers, with major clients like OpenAI and Meta in the mix. Shares bounced back on Wednesday, a sign investors took the fresh results as proof those investments could finally be delivering.
Oracle reported a 325% jump in remaining performance obligations from a year ago, climbing to $553 billion—these are revenues locked in but not yet recognized. The company bumped up its fiscal 2027 revenue outlook to $90 billion, while sticking with earlier forecasts for fiscal 2026: $67 billion in revenue and $50 billion in capital spending.
Oracle posted a 22% bump in total revenue for the quarter ended Feb. 28, hitting $17.2 billion. Cloud revenue surged 44% to $8.9 billion, while Oracle Cloud Infrastructure rocketed up 84% to $4.9 billion. Adjusted earnings per share landed at $1.79. Looking ahead, the company is projecting fourth-quarter cloud revenue growth of 46% to 50% in U.S. dollars.
eMarketer analyst Jacob Bourne described the numbers as a “stress test result for the AI trade.” Oracle executive Clay Magouyrk, speaking on the earnings call, noted that the cloud unit’s margin profile “continues to strengthen,” pointing to growth in higher-margin database services alongside demand for AI-chip rentals. Reuters
The funding snag isn’t gone. Oracle reported that a good chunk of its fresh AI deals come with customer prepayments or customers bringing their own GPUs—the chips essential for AI work. The company also said it has pulled in $30 billion so far after setting out to raise as much as $50 billion in debt and equity.
The financing question isn’t fading, according to Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. Even as Oracle’s revamped contract structure could help the company scale up without footing the entire hardware bill, the issue lingers. Morgan Stanley analysts struck a more reserved tone. Investors, they wrote, are still waiting for firmer evidence that Oracle’s GPU-as-a-service business—essentially, leasing high-end AI chips in the cloud—will actually bolster earnings and free cash flow. Oracle’s credit default swaps, which measure the cost for investors to insure against a default, surged to record highs earlier this month before pulling back, Reuters reported.
Oracle is jockeying for a bigger piece of the AI cloud action, looking to draw AI workloads away from Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. At the same time, it’s fending off worries that AI-powered coding could chip away at the core software-as-a-service business. Larry Ellison shrugged off the threat, arguing that the SaaS-apocalypse “applies to others but not to Oracle.” Ocean Park Asset Management’s James St. Aubin pointed to proprietary data as the “deepest moat by far.” Reuters
Rebecca Wettemann, CEO at Valoir, pointed out that Oracle’s database is compatible with all the leading clouds—letting customers pick where to run workloads as AI expands across different platforms. This flexibility sits at the heart of Oracle’s strategy: instead of matching the top cloud providers dollar for dollar, the company relies on its massive database user base.
The next hurdle is just ahead. Oracle is forecasting fourth-quarter revenue growth between 19% and 21%, with adjusted earnings pegged at $1.96 to $2.00 per share. Wall Street wants more clarity on whether demand, margins, and funding are lining up.
