NEW YORK, March 2, 2026, 11:44 EST — Regular session
- Oracle slid roughly 4.5% in the morning session, with the stock hitting a low just under $139 earlier.
- U.S. stocks slid, dragged down in a wide selloff as oil surged amid mounting concerns over conflict in the Middle East.
- Next up, Friday brings the U.S. jobs report, while Oracle’s results in mid-March are also on investors’ radar for the next catalyst.
Oracle Corp dropped roughly 4.5% to $145.40 on Monday, caught up in a rocky patch as risk appetite waned in U.S. equities. Earlier in the day, shares touched a low of $138.62.
The shift is significant: Oracle stands in for data center and cloud capex plays, and those stocks don’t sit still when inflation jitters return. Oil is jumping again, adding fuel to worries that rate cuts might be further delayed—a scenario that often knocks tech names with longer earnings runways.
That’s coming as Oracle heads toward its next earnings report, a time when investors typically push the company on cloud growth and cost control. According to Oracle’s investor FAQ, fiscal 2026 Q3 results are slated for mid-March.
U.S. stocks slipped, with Wall Street’s major indexes under pressure as investors assessed the impact of ongoing Middle East tensions, Reuters said. Oil jumped over 8% on regional production stoppages; defense stocks advanced, and airline shares took a hit.
“The market is taking it relatively well,” said Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist at LPL Financial, in comments to Reuters, flagging that traders are bracing for a conflict that could last weeks. Elsewhere, Wells Fargo’s Ohsung Kwon warned in a note—also cited by Reuters—that the S&P 500 might be in for a steeper pullback if crude tops $100 a barrel. Reuters
Outside the shifting geopolitical backdrop, nerves remain high among investors watching artificial intelligence redraw the profit map for industries like software. “There is very little definitive right now,” Kristina Hooper, chief market strategist at Man Group, told Reuters, summing up the back-and-forth in markets over which stocks could emerge as AI “winners” or land among the “victims.” Reuters
For Oracle, this circles back to a persistent issue: the pace at which fresh cloud deals actually turn into money, and the mechanics of paying for expansion. The company announced earlier this year it’s planning to pull in $45 billion to $50 billion in 2026, tapping both debt and equity to ramp up its cloud infrastructure.
The company keeps pushing its cloud infrastructure as the go-to for demanding AI jobs, edging it nearer to the big hyperscalers and making its spending intentions a focus for investors. If customers so much as ease up on growth plans, the entire trade can feel the effects.
There’s another scenario to consider. Should oil prices remain elevated and inflation expectations rise, investors might push for greater returns to offset risk, which would weigh on software valuations—regardless of whether the companies themselves are doing anything wrong. Strong fundamentals may not be enough to cut through that noise.
Traders are zeroed in on Friday’s February U.S. jobs data, landing at 8:30 a.m. ET, looking for any signals on where interest rates could be headed next.
Next up: Oracle’s mid-March earnings take center stage, with investors zeroed in on cloud demand, capex, and how funding is shaping up.
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