Oracle shares fell 0.90% to $151.22 in midday trading on Friday, another step down for a stock that has lost a great deal of ground since last year.
The drop was small. The distance from the peak is not. Oracle hit its 52-week high of $345.72 on September 10, 2025, and its 52-week low of $134.57 on April 10, 2026. Near $151, the stock sits much closer to the low.
The swings have been sharp. Oracle surged 39.9% in May, its best month since February 2000, on enthusiasm over its AI-related order backlog. It is now on pace for its worst month since 2001.
The earnings report behind the slide
The trouble traces to fiscal fourth-quarter results that looked fine on the surface. Adjusted earnings came in at $2.03 per share against the $1.96 analysts expected. Revenue of $19.18 billion beat an estimate of $19.10 billion and was up 21% from a year earlier. Oracle also raised its profit forecast.
Shares still dropped 10% in extended trading. The reason was financing: Oracle said it foresees raising $40 billion through additional debt and equity, including a previously announced $20 billion share sale.
That comes after the $43 billion in debt and $5 billion in equity the company raised during fiscal 2026. Investors are uneasy about whether demand for artificial intelligence can justify so much new capital.
Cash flow and spending
For the fiscal year, Oracle reported negative free cash flow of $23.7 billion. Depreciation nearly doubled to $7.62 billion, and capital expenditures jumped 162% to $55.7 billion.
More is coming. New chief financial officer Hilary Maxson said net cash outlay for capital expenditures in fiscal 2027 will be around $70 billion, excluding $20 billion to $25 billion in prepayments from customers and timing impacts.
Jobs, backlog and the OpenAI link
Oracle’s latest annual report shows it cut about 21,000 jobs over the past fiscal year, shrinking its workforce roughly 13%. The same filing lists a record $638 billion in remaining performance obligations. Bank of America analysts, who recommend buying the shares, said over 50% of that figure comes from OpenAI.
CEO Clay Magouyrk told analysts on a conference call that Oracle plans to bring online almost one gigawatt of computing power in the current quarter alone, roughly the total for all of fiscal 2026. Related Digital and Blackstone said they have secured funding for a $16 billion Oracle data center site in Michigan.
Some of Friday’s pressure may be specific to Oracle. One analyst note warned that preferred stock conversions and at-the-market equity issuances could dilute shareholders. Evercore took the other side, saying the 10-K filing strengthens its view that the outlook for fiscal 2027 is intact.
Several of the market’s largest technology names also traded lower in the same session, as investors reassess AI valuations after a long rally.
Oracle’s next earnings report is not expected until September. In fiscal 2026 the company delivered more than 1.2 gigawatts of data center capacity, underpinning 77% year-over-year growth in its cloud infrastructure business.
