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Buy the Dip in Oracle Stock After Record Q4 Results?
Oracle delivered record results for its fiscal fourth quarter yesterday evening, driven by accelerating demand for its cloud infrastructure services and artificial intelligence-related offerings.
However, the market's attention has shifted to Oracle's enormous cost of achieving its AI growth ambitions, causing shares to fall more than 10% in Thursday morning's trading session.
That said, let's take a closer look at Oracle's latest results, growth prospects, and valuation to determine whether investors should be buying ORCL on the dip.
Oracle's Record Q4 Results
Oracle reported record Q4 sales of $19.18 billion, edging Wall Street's expectations of roughly $19 billion flat, and rising 20% from $15.9 billion in the prior year quarter.
Cloud services remained a key growth engine as enterprises shift workloads to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), which saw a 93% surge in revenue.
On the bottom line, Q4 earnings came in at a quarterly peak of $2.11 per share. This impressively exceeded expectations of $1.96 and soared 24% from Q4 EPS of $1.70 a year ago.
Record Full Year Results & Bullish Guidance
Rounding out its fiscal 2026, Oracle's annual sales increased 17% to a record $67.36 billion, with full-year adjusted EPS climbing 27% to a peak of $7.63.
Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of Oracle's Q4 report was management's bullish outlook. Oracle guided Q1 EPS at $1.72-$1.76, which came in ahead of Wall Street's forecast of $1.70 or 15% growth. Oracle expects Q1 sales to grow 27-29%, and above the street's current forecast of $14.93 billion or 26% growth.
Additionally, Oracle reaffirmed its ambitious goal of reaching $90 billion in total revenue during FY27, with the current consensus annual sales forecast at $89 billion or 32% growth. Even better, Oracle raised its FY27 EPS guidance to $8.05, which was slightly ahead of analyst forecast of $8.00 or 5% growth.
The strong guidance was supported by continued strength in OCI, with Oracle having a record remaining performance obligation (RPO) backlog of $638 billion.
It's noteworthy that Oracle's RPO now exceeds the market's largest cloud providers in respect to Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet.
Massive AI Spending Shocks Investors
The lone issue investors had with Oracle's stellar Q4 report was its capital spending plans. Oracle spent approximately $55.66 billion in CapEx during FY26, which was well above expectations, and advised spending could remain extraordinarily high as it expands AI data-center capacity.
The primary concern is that Oracle must spend tens of billions of dollars upfront before the revenue fully materializes.
Justifying its elevated CapEx, Oracle highlighted robust demand from AI customers, as cloud bookings and RPO continue to expand at an impressive pace.
Monitoring Oracle's Valuation
Oracle's growth story remains compelling, but valuation has become a more important consideration.
Investors have increasingly priced in expectations for accelerating cloud revenue growth and sustained AI-driven demand. As a result, Oracle now trades at a premium relative to its historical valuation levels.
Trading around $180 a share, ORCL is at a 31X forward earnings multiple, which is noticeably above its decade-long median of 18X. ORCL is also at a notable premium to its Zacks Computer-Software Industry average of 22X forward earnings.
The challenge for investors is determining whether future earnings growth can continue to justify the stock's higher multiple.
Conclusion & Final Thoughts
Oracle's strong Q4 report reinforced its position within the cloud computing and artificial intelligence markets. Demand trends remain favorable, management continues to execute well, and Oracle's long-term growth outlook appears attractive.
While Oracle remains a high-quality technology company with meaningful AI exposure, the current risk-reward profile may not be as compelling as it was in years past.
For now, ORCL lands a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Still, it's plausible that a buy rating could be on the way if analysts start to aggressively raise their EPS revisions for FY27 given Oracle's record Q4 results and bullish guidance.
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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performancefor information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
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Zacks Investment Ideas feature highlights: Oracle, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet
For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – June 12, 2026 – Today, Zacks Investment Ideas feature highlights Oracle (ORCL - Free Report) , Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) , Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) and Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) .
Buy the Dip in Oracle Stock After Record Q4 Results?
Oracle delivered record results for its fiscal fourth quarter yesterday evening, driven by accelerating demand for its cloud infrastructure services and artificial intelligence-related offerings.
However, the market's attention has shifted to Oracle's enormous cost of achieving its AI growth ambitions, causing shares to fall more than 10% in Thursday morning's trading session.
That said, let's take a closer look at Oracle's latest results, growth prospects, and valuation to determine whether investors should be buying ORCL on the dip.
Oracle's Record Q4 Results
Oracle reported record Q4 sales of $19.18 billion, edging Wall Street's expectations of roughly $19 billion flat, and rising 20% from $15.9 billion in the prior year quarter.
Cloud services remained a key growth engine as enterprises shift workloads to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), which saw a 93% surge in revenue.
On the bottom line, Q4 earnings came in at a quarterly peak of $2.11 per share. This impressively exceeded expectations of $1.96 and soared 24% from Q4 EPS of $1.70 a year ago.
Record Full Year Results & Bullish Guidance
Rounding out its fiscal 2026, Oracle's annual sales increased 17% to a record $67.36 billion, with full-year adjusted EPS climbing 27% to a peak of $7.63.
Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of Oracle's Q4 report was management's bullish outlook. Oracle guided Q1 EPS at $1.72-$1.76, which came in ahead of Wall Street's forecast of $1.70 or 15% growth. Oracle expects Q1 sales to grow 27-29%, and above the street's current forecast of $14.93 billion or 26% growth.
Additionally, Oracle reaffirmed its ambitious goal of reaching $90 billion in total revenue during FY27, with the current consensus annual sales forecast at $89 billion or 32% growth. Even better, Oracle raised its FY27 EPS guidance to $8.05, which was slightly ahead of analyst forecast of $8.00 or 5% growth.
The strong guidance was supported by continued strength in OCI, with Oracle having a record remaining performance obligation (RPO) backlog of $638 billion.
It's noteworthy that Oracle's RPO now exceeds the market's largest cloud providers in respect to Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet.
Massive AI Spending Shocks Investors
The lone issue investors had with Oracle's stellar Q4 report was its capital spending plans. Oracle spent approximately $55.66 billion in CapEx during FY26, which was well above expectations, and advised spending could remain extraordinarily high as it expands AI data-center capacity.
The primary concern is that Oracle must spend tens of billions of dollars upfront before the revenue fully materializes.
Justifying its elevated CapEx, Oracle highlighted robust demand from AI customers, as cloud bookings and RPO continue to expand at an impressive pace.
Monitoring Oracle's Valuation
Oracle's growth story remains compelling, but valuation has become a more important consideration.
Investors have increasingly priced in expectations for accelerating cloud revenue growth and sustained AI-driven demand. As a result, Oracle now trades at a premium relative to its historical valuation levels.
Trading around $180 a share, ORCL is at a 31X forward earnings multiple, which is noticeably above its decade-long median of 18X. ORCL is also at a notable premium to its Zacks Computer-Software Industry average of 22X forward earnings.
The challenge for investors is determining whether future earnings growth can continue to justify the stock's higher multiple.
Conclusion & Final Thoughts
Oracle's strong Q4 report reinforced its position within the cloud computing and artificial intelligence markets. Demand trends remain favorable, management continues to execute well, and Oracle's long-term growth outlook appears attractive.
While Oracle remains a high-quality technology company with meaningful AI exposure, the current risk-reward profile may not be as compelling as it was in years past.
For now, ORCL lands a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Still, it's plausible that a buy rating could be on the way if analysts start to aggressively raise their EPS revisions for FY27 given Oracle's record Q4 results and bullish guidance.
Why Haven't You Looked at Zacks' Top Stocks?
Since 2000, our top stock-picking strategies have blown away the S&P's +7.7% average gain per year. Amazingly, they soared with average gains of +48.4%, +50.2% and +56.7% per year.
Today you can access their live picks without cost or obligation.
See Stocks Free >>
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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performancefor information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.