New York, March 11, 2026, 12:47 PM EDT
- The stock climbed 9.7% to $163.83, pulling back after hitting a session peak of $171.60 earlier.
- Oracle’s fiscal Q3 revenue increased 22% to $17.19 billion. Cloud revenue was up 44%, while Oracle Cloud Infrastructure surged 84%.
- Oracle is sticking with $50 billion in capital spending for fiscal 2026, while bumping up its fiscal 2027 revenue goal to $90 billion.
Oracle jumped almost 10% Wednesday, lifted by a higher fiscal 2027 revenue forecast and solid cloud results yet again. Shares touched $171.60 before settling up 9.7% at $163.83.
The surge is notable, given persistent doubts about Oracle’s funding needs for its AI expansion. Back in February, Oracle flagged the possibility of raising as much as $50 billion through debt and equity. Fast forward to Tuesday: the company reported it’s already secured $30 billion, with capital spending guidance for fiscal 2026 still locked at $50 billion.
Oracle mentioned that a lot of its latest big AI deals have customers either paying upfront or providing their own graphics chips. That arrangement allows Oracle to ramp up capacity and record growth, sidestepping much of the initial expense.
For the quarter ended Feb. 28, revenue climbed 22% to $17.19 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share came in at $1.79. Oracle noted this marked the first time in over 15 years that both organic revenue and adjusted EPS saw at least 20% growth in U.S. dollars. Cloud revenue hit $8.9 billion, a jump of 44%.
One standout metric: remaining performance obligations, or RPO. This is revenue already contracted but not yet booked. That backlog soared 325% year over year, hitting $553 billion and leaving Oracle with a substantially bigger runway of future revenue to process.
eMarketer’s Jacob Bourne described the quarter as “a stress test result for the AI trade.” Hargreaves Lansdown’s Matt Britzman pointed out that several fresh AI contracts allow customers to “pay upfront or bring their own hardware,” which cuts into some of the funding pressure. Reuters
Oracle continues to chase AWS and Microsoft Azure in the cloud infrastructure race. The company’s Oracle Cloud Infrastructure revenue surged 84% this quarter. Multicloud database revenue? Up a staggering 531%. Oracle’s been busy building data centers for big names like OpenAI and Meta.
Executives also took on another concern in software: the risk that AI coding tools could threaten demand for traditional software-as-a-service, or SaaS. Co-founder Larry Ellison dismissed that idea, saying, “SaaS-apocalypse applies to others but not to Oracle.” The company added it’s using AI code generation to build more software, but with leaner teams. Reuters
Risks linger. Oracle is sticking with its target of as much as $50 billion in financing this year, but flagged headwinds from chip supplies, data-center limits, tariffs, and trade tensions. Morgan Stanley analysts noted that investors remain unconvinced; they’re looking for more definitive evidence that Oracle’s AI chip leasing can actually bolster earnings and free cash flow.
Oracle is guiding for adjusted earnings per share between $1.96 and $2.00 this quarter, with revenue expected to climb 19% to 21% in U.S. dollars. Cloud revenue? Management is looking for 46% to 50% growth. Clay Magouyrk put margins on AI chip rentals at 30% to 40%, and noted that database services tend to be even more profitable. That leaves the next hurdle for the stock not just growth, but whether the business can deliver on profitability.
