Oracle drops as earnings come up slightly short

Oracle Corp. came up slightly short of expectations with its quarterly earnings report Thursday, and shares declined in late trading. The enterprise software giant reported net income of $1.8 billion, or 43 cents a share, on sales of $8.6 billion for its fiscal first quarter; after adjustments for stock-based compensation and other factors, Oracle claimed earnings of 55 cents a share. Analysts on average expected Oracle to report adjusted earnings of 58 cents a share on sales of $8.7 billion, according to FactSet. Oracle also missed its own projection for sales, which called for revenue of $8.62 billion to $8.87 billion. Oracle's transition to a cloud model of software delivery came up a bit short as well, with total cloud revenue of $969 million trailing the average analyst expectation of $971.4 million, according to FactSet. Oracle has agreed to buy cloud-software company NetSuite Inc. for $9.3 billion to add to that total, but that acquisition is not yet assured. Oracle shares fell to close to $40 after the report was released, after the stock closed with a 1.5% gain at $40.86.

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