Oracle stock booms 40%, on pace for best day since 1992
Oracle stock roared 40% higher on Wednesday after reporting gobsmacking cloud demand numbers, setting the company on track for a historic gain.
The cloud giant is on pace for its best day since 1992, and is now quickly approaching the $1 trillion market cap benchmark. Oracle is now at $950 billion.
The company said Tuesday after the bell that it has $455 billion in remaining performance obligations, up 359% from a year earlier.
“This is a very historic kind of print right here from Oracle with this backlog,” Ben Reitzes, technology research head at Melius Research, told CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime” on Tuesday. “The Street was looking for about $180 billion in RPO and they’re talking about a number that is a multiple of that. That is astounding.”
Oracle has been one of the biggest benefactors of the artificial intelligence boom thanks to its cloud infrastructure business and its access to Nvidia’s graphics processing units, or GPUs, which are both needed to run large workloads. But competition is fierce, and Oracle is jostling with other cloud providers like Microsoft, Amazon and Google for customers.
Oracle’s founder, Larry Ellison, is set to add about $100 billion to his net worth. Bloomberg reported that he has topped Tesla CEO Elon Musk as the world’s richest person.
Oracle one-day stock chart.
Oracle now sees $18 billion in cloud infrastructure revenue in the 2026 fiscal year, with the company calling for the annual sum to reach $32 billion, $73 billion, $114 billion and $144 billion over the subsequent four years.
Other analysts were left “blown away” and “in shock.” D.A. Davidson’s Gil Luria called it “absolutely staggering on CNBC’s “Fast Money.” Wells Fargo analysts said it was a “momentous confirmation” of the AI trade.
Analysts at Deutsche Bank called Oracle’s results “truly awesome” in a Wednesday note, writing that the company has underscored its position as a leader in AI infrastructure.
They reiterated their buy rating on the stock and raised their price target to $335 from $240.
“In our near 20 years covering Oracle and for that matter the entire Software industry, there are few quarterly results that match F1Q both in terms of magnitude of revision and clarity of the moment,” the analysts said.
Bank of America analysts said Oracle’s “exceptional backlog” cements its place as “a key AI enabler.” They upgraded the stock to buy from neutral in a note on Wednesday.
“Although profitability of AI workloads remains a key debate, it is clear that Oracle is capturing share
in the large and rapidly growing market for AI infrastructure,” the analysts wrote.
Oracle’s cloud revenue projections overshadowed an otherwise lackluster first-quarter report in which the company missed expectations on the top and bottom lines.
The company had earnings of an adjusted $1.47 per share for the quarter, just below the $1.48 per share expected by analysts polled by LSEG. Revenue for the first quarter came in at $14.93 billion, missing the $15.04 billion expected.
–CNBC’s Jordan Novet contributed to this report
An electric air taxi by Joby Aviation flies near the Downtown Manhattan Heliport in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., November 12, 2023.
Roselle Chen | Reuters
Air taxi maker Joby Aviation in a new lawsuit accused competitor Archer Aviation of using stolen information by a former employee to “one-up” a partnership deal with a real estate developer.
“This is corporate espionage, planned and premeditated,” Joby said in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in a California Superior Court in Santa Cruz, where the company is based.
Archer and Joby did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
The lawsuit alleges that former U.S. state and local policy lead, George Kivork, downloaded dozens of files and sent some content to his personal email two days before he resigned in July to take a job at Archer, which had recruited him.
By August, Joby said a partner that worked with Kivork said it had been approached by Archer with a “more lucrative deal.” Joby alleges that the eVTOL rival’s understanding of “highly confidential” details helped it leverage negotiations.
Joby also said the developer attempted to terminate the agreement, citing a breach of confidentiality.
Kivork refused to return the files when Joby approached him after conducting an investigation, according to the suit. The company also said Archer denied wrongdoing, and would not disclose how it learned about the terms of the agreement or provide results from an internal investigation it allegedly undertook.
The lawsuit comes during a busy period for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) technology as companies race to gain Federal Aviation Administration certification to start flying commercially. ‘
The sector has also benefitted from President Donald Trump‘s newly minted eVTOL pilot program.
Joby argued in the complaint that it’s “imperative” to protect Joby’s work “from this type of espionage” to promote the sector’s success and ensure fair competition.
Last week, Joby said it completed its first test flight for a hybrid aircraft it’s working on with defense contractor L3Harris. This month, Amazon-backed Beta Technologies, another electric flight company, also went public on the New York Stock Exchange.
Joby shares have more than doubled over the last year, while Archer is up about 68%.
In August 2023, Archer settled a previous legal dispute with Boeing-owned Wisk Aero over the alleged theft of trade secrets. As part of the deal, Archer agreed to use Wisk as its autonomous tech partner.
A hearing is scheduled for March 20, 2026.
Joby and Archer year-to-date stock chart.
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