JPMorgan analyst Mark Murphy downgraded Oracle (ORCL) to Neutral from Overweight and lowered his price target for the shares to $53 from $55. The stock closed yesterday down 18c to $48.27. The shares have risen from the $30s into the high $40s over the last two years, but the company's fundamental performance has remained inconsistent, Murphy tells investors in a research note. Further, the analyst notes that in his firm's recent survey of 154 chief investment officers, Oracle received the largest number of indications for planned spending contraction this year, materially more than the second-worst company. The CIOs indicate contraction in Oracle spending this year, placing the company alongside IBM (IBM), Checkpoint (CHKP), and CA (CA), Murphy contends. He notes the results of his firm's CIO surveys over the years "have been highly predictive."

Oracle Corporation Japan "announced that it plans to invest more than $8B over the next 10 years to meet the growing demand for cloud computing and AI infrastructure in Japan. The investment will grow Oracle Cloud Infrastructure's footprint across Japan. In addition, to help customers and partners address the digital sovereignty requirements in Japan, Oracle will significantly expand its operations and support engineering teams with Japan-based personnel. Oracle plans to increase local customer support of its public cloud regions in Tokyo and Osaka and its local operations teams for Oracle Alloy and OCI Dedicated Region. This will enable governments and businesses across Japan to continue to move their mission-critical workloads to the Oracle Cloud and embrace sovereign AI solutions."