Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) Stock Price Down 1.6% After Analyst Downgrade

Key Points

• Oracle shares fell 1.6% after Morgan Stanley cut its price target from $213 to $207 and moved the stock to Equal Weight, with trading volume about 16% above average (~33.0M shares).
• Analysts are mixed—several firms trimmed targets while others stayed constructive—leaving a MarketBeat consensus of "Moderate Buy" with a $259.56 consensus target; sentiment is boosted by Wedbush's AI thesis and a Google Cloud AI partnership but dented by a canceled Super Micro order and concerns about AI capex.
• Company insiders (including the EVP and CEO) recently sold shares under prearranged plans, while Oracle reported an EPS beat, set Q4 2026 guidance of $1.96–$2.00, and announced a quarterly dividend of $0.50.

Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL - Get Free Report) shares fell 1.6% during trading on Friday after Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on the stock from $213.00 to $207.00. Morgan Stanley currently has an equal weight rating on the stock. Oracle traded as low as $168.80 and last traded at $173.5060. 33,019,970 shares were traded during trading, an increase of 16% from the average session volume of 28,514,039 shares. The stock had previously closed at $176.28.

A number of other research firms have also commented on ORCL. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price objective on Oracle from $205.00 to $200.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, March 11th. DA Davidson raised their price objective on Oracle from $180.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 11th. UBS Group restated a "buy" rating on shares of Oracle in a research note on Monday, February 2nd. TD Cowen decreased their price target on Oracle from $350.00 to $250.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 6th. Finally, Scotiabank decreased their price target on Oracle from $220.00 to $215.00 and set a "sector outperform" rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 9th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have assigned a Buy rating, nine have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Oracle has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $259.56.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, EVP Stuart Levey sold 15,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Thursday, April 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $176.19, for a total transaction of $2,642,850.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 3,429 shares in the company, valued at $604,155.51. The trade was a 81.39% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Clayton M. Magouyrk sold 10,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Monday, February 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $155.23, for a total value of $1,552,300.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 134,030 shares in the company, valued at $20,805,476.90. This represents a 6.94% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders own 40.90% of the company's stock.

Key Stories Impacting Oracle

Here are the key news stories impacting Oracle this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Wedbush initiated coverage with an Outperform and a $225 price target, calling Oracle a “foundational” AI infrastructure play—this pushed pre-market buying and underpins longer‑term upside expectations tied to Oracle’s AI backlog. Wedbush crowns Oracle with $225 target
• Positive Sentiment: Oracle expanded its Google Cloud partnership with an Oracle AI Database Agent for Gemini Enterprise, which supports multicloud AI workflows and helps monetize Oracle’s core database franchise in AI use cases. Oracle and Google Cloud link AI to keep enterprise data on Oracle
• Neutral Sentiment: Retail / strategy pieces continue to label ORCL as a relatively stable enterprise software pick (e.g., “safe stock for beginners”), keeping conservative investor interest alive but with limited immediate price impact. Oracle: A Safe Stock for Beginners?
• Negative Sentiment: Reports said Oracle canceled a large Super Micro Computer order for 300–400 Nvidia GB300 racks (an estimated $1.1–$1.4B deal). That execution uncertainty hit sentiment and weighed on both ORCL and supplier SMCI. Oracle stock falls 3%: why this analyst still sees upside
• Negative Sentiment: Coverage flagged mounting concern over Oracle’s fast‑ramped AI data‑center spending and related financing strain — a wider market worry about AI capex that can re-rate multiples if margins/returns don’t materialize. Why Oracle's AI spending spree has Wall Street on edge
• Negative Sentiment: Morgan Stanley trimmed its price target and put ORCL at Equal Weight, and several outlets noted recent share declines — small analyst/target moves add to near‑term selling pressure even if some firms remain constructive. ORCL price target and analyst notes

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Oracle

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Oracle during the 4th quarter worth about $4,336,031,000. Jennison Associates LLC lifted its holdings in Oracle by 2,062.4% during the 3rd quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 9,227,252 shares of the enterprise software provider's stock worth $2,595,072,000 after buying an additional 8,800,546 shares during the period. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its holdings in Oracle by 29.3% during the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 30,137,126 shares of the enterprise software provider's stock worth $5,874,070,000 after buying an additional 6,826,299 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Oracle by 3.5% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 174,802,084 shares of the enterprise software provider's stock worth $34,070,674,000 after buying an additional 5,841,584 shares during the period. Finally, Cardano Risk Management B.V. lifted its holdings in Oracle by 882.3% during the 4th quarter. Cardano Risk Management B.V. now owns 4,991,010 shares of the enterprise software provider's stock worth $972,798,000 after buying an additional 4,482,934 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 42.44% of the company's stock.

Oracle Price Performance

The stock has a market capitalization of $499.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.15, a P/E/G ratio of 1.79 and a beta of 1.60. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $153.95 and a 200 day simple moving average of $194.09. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.66, a quick ratio of 1.35 and a current ratio of 1.35.

Oracle (NYSE:ORCL - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, March 10th. The enterprise software provider reported $1.79 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.71 by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $17.19 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.91 billion. Oracle had a return on equity of 62.70% and a net margin of 25.30%.The business's quarterly revenue was up 21.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.47 EPS. Oracle has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 1.960-2.000 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Oracle Corporation will post 6.07 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Oracle Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, April 24th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 9th will be issued a dividend of $0.50 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 9th. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.2%. Oracle's payout ratio is presently 35.91%.

Oracle Company Profile

Oracle Corporation is a multinational technology company that develops and sells database software, cloud engineered systems, enterprise software applications and related services. The company is widely known for its flagship Oracle Database and a portfolio of enterprise-grade software products that support data management, application development, analytics and middleware. Over recent years Oracle has expanded its focus to include cloud infrastructure and cloud applications, positioning itself as a provider of both platform and software-as-a-service solutions for large organizations.

Oracle's product and service offerings include Oracle Database and the Autonomous Database, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), enterprise resource planning (ERP), human capital management (HCM) and supply chain management (SCM) cloud applications (often grouped under Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications), middleware such as WebLogic, and developer technologies including Java and MySQL.

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.