Shares of tech giant Oracle soared by almost 40 percent midweek, marking the biggest one-day rally in more than 30 years after topping Wall Street expectations.
Oracle CEO Safra Catz confirmed in a statement that the firm completed four multibillion-dollar contracts with three different clients, and expects to establish several more lucrative contracts with other companies.
Additionally, revenues from its MultiCloud database soared by more than 1,500 percent in the first quarter.
“Clearly, we had an amazing start to the year because Oracle has become the go-to place for AI workload,” Catz told analysts and shareholders in an earnings call. “We have signed significant cloud contracts with the who’s who of AI, including OpenAI, xAI, Meta, Nvidia, AMD, and many others.”
Since the start of the artificial intelligence boom a few years ago, Oracle has been one of the largest beneficiaries, mainly due to its expansive cloud infrastructure business and access to Nvidia’s graphics processing units.
And, according to Larry Ellison, Oracle’s founder and chief technology officer, the best is yet to come.
“Oracle AI Cloud Infrastructure and the Oracle MultiCloud AI Database will both contribute to dramatically increasing cloud demand and consumption over the next several years. AI Changes Everything,” he said in a statement.
The stock had increased by as much as 50 percent before paring some of its gains during the Sept. 10 trading session.
Oracle still surged by more than 34 percent, rising to nearly $325 per share. This year, its shares are up 95 percent and have rocketed by about 460 percent over the past five years.
The Sept. 10 performance was the best single-session rally for Oracle since 1992, and the company is inching closer to the $1 trillion market cap benchmark.
Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, says that despite Oracle slightly missing earnings per share (EPS) estimates, investors celebrated its positive corporate governance. The company reported an EPS—a measure of profit generated for every share of stock—of $1.47 compared to the market forecast of $1.48.
Revenues also came in at $14.93 billion, falling short of expectations of $15.04 billion.
“Remember, quarterly reports are backwards looking but markets are relentlessly looking towards the future,” Sosnick said in a Sept. 10 note.
As a result, Oracle’s surge has enabled its market capitalization to rise to just behind Berkshire Hathaway ($1.06 trillion) and surpass those of JPMorgan Chase ($826 billion) and Visa ($655 billion).
“ORCL must now be considered a key bellwether for the key sector that has driven the bull market for the past 3 years,” Sosnick added.
Ellison, meanwhile, will add more than $100 billion to his net worth, dethroning Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk as the world’s wealthiest person.
In January, President Donald Trump announced a joint venture between Oracle, OpenAI, and Japan’s Softbank called Project Stargate. The $500 billion initiative will construct 10 gigawatts of AI data center capacity across the United States over four years.
