Oracle (ORCL) is scheduled to report results of its second fiscal quarter after the market close on December 12, with a conference call scheduled for 5:00 pm ET. What to watch for:
1. GUIDANCE: Along with its last report, Oracle guided for Q2 earnings per share of 88c-90c in constant currency on revenue growth of 1%-3%, also in constant currency. At the time, analysts were expecting the company to report Q2 EPS of 91c, but that figure has since fallen to 88c. Wall Street also sees revenue for the quarter of $9.65B.
2. HURD PASSING: On October 18, Oracle announced the passing of co-chief executive officer Mark Hurd, who had taken a leave of absence a month earlier for health related reasons. Chief technology officer and co-founder Larry Ellison commented in the announcement of the matter, "It is with a profound sense of sadness and loss that I tell everyone here at Oracle that Mark Hurd passed away early this morning. Mark was my close and irreplaceable friend, and trusted colleague. Oracle has lost a brilliant and beloved leader who personally touched the lives of so many of us during his decade at Oracle. All of us will miss Mark's keen mind and rare ability to analyze, simplify and solve problems quickly. Some of us will miss his friendship and mentorship."
3. JEDI CONTRACT: In late October, Microsoft (MSFT) was named the winner in a competition for public cloud resources for the Defense Department, beating out Amazon's (AMZN) Amazon Web Services unit. The contract could be worth as much as $10B over a decade. Prior to the announcement, Oracle was among companies, along with IBM (IBM) and Google (GOOG), also competing for the Pentagon contract.
4. GOOGLE APPEAL: On November 15, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Alphabet's appeal of Oracle's copyright lawsuit. A jury cleared Google in 2016, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington overturned that decision in 2018, finding that Google's inclusion of Oracle's software code in Android did not constitute a fair use under U.S. copyright law, according to Bloomberg. Oracle has sought at least $8B in damages.
5. NEW CLOUD HIRES: On October 8, Oracle announced plans to hire nearly 2,000 employees worldwide to work on its growing Oracle Cloud Infrastructure business. The new roles, which include software development, cloud operations, and business operations, will support Oracle's rapidly expanding infrastructure customer base, and come as the company rolls out new product innovations and rapidly opens cloud regions around the globe, the company said at the time.
Alphabet
-0.04 (-0.00%)
Alphabet
+1.86 (+0.14%)
IBM
+1.17 (+0.87%)
Amazon.com
+0.51 (+0.03%)
Microsoft
+0.03 (+0.02%)
Oracle
-0.16 (-0.28%)