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Oracle (ORCL) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Oracle (ORCL - Free Report) closed at $90.05 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.8% move from the prior day. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.05%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.02%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 9.7%.

Heading into today, shares of the software maker had gained 5.66% over the past month, lagging the Computer and Technology sector's gain of 11.44% and the S&P 500's gain of 6.27% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from Oracle as it approaches its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect Oracle to post earnings of $1.19 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 5.31%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $12.39 billion, up 17.9% from the year-ago period.

ORCL's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $4.91 per share and revenue of $49.74 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +0.2% and +17.19%, respectively.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Oracle. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an actionable rating system.

The Zacks Rank system, which ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has an impressive outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks generating an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.09% lower. Oracle currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Investors should also note Oracle's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 18.03. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 28.2, which means Oracle is trading at a discount to the group.

We can also see that ORCL currently has a PEG ratio of 2.25. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. The Computer - Software industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 2.11 as of yesterday's close.

The Computer - Software industry is part of the Computer and Technology sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 146, putting it in the bottom 43% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank includes is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.


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