A few analysts downgraded Oracle shares on the news.
- Canaccord Genuity analyst Richard Davis reduced his rating on the stock to Hold from Buy, with a new target of $28, down from $38. "Oracle posted a substantial shortfall for a company that is typically quite predictable," he writes in a research note. "We expect the shares to trade sideways for the next two to three quarters."
- CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets analyst Ed Maguire cut his rating on the stock to Underperform from Buy, with a new target of $30, down from $36. "Customers are delaying commitments due to uncertainty driven by a combination of factors," he writes. "Management remains bullish on products and pipeline, but after bookings weakness from Salesforce.com, Red Hat and Oracle, we think it is more than execution at issue. Though maintenance cashflows are resilient, we expect negative bookings and growth trends, lengthening decision cycles, FX headwinds and increasingly tough year-over-year compares to keep the shares range-bound in the near term."
- Societe Generale analyst Richard Nguyen cut his rating to Hold from Buy, with a new target of $28, down from $32. He cites several reasons for the downgrade, including a potential slowdown in database and middleware, deceleration in applications, uncertainties in hardware and the potential for large acquisition to bolster the company's weak growth rate.
I would note that a slew of other analyst trimmed price targets and estimates for the company.
Oracle shares have tumbled $3.92, or 13.4%, to $25.25.
Other enterprise shares are also trading in the red, as investors back away from the sector.
- Tibco, a middleware provider which reports results today after the close, is down $2.77, or 11.8%, to $20.79.
- SAP, the company's chief rival in application software, is down $3.48, or 6.2%, to $52.25.
- IBM, a competitor in both hardware and software, is down $6.14, or 3.3%, to $181.10.
- Salesforce.com, which is trying to steal way the company's CRM customers, is down $7.44, or 7.1%, to $96.88.
- EMC, a key player in enterprise storage and software, is down 80 cents, or 3.6%, to $21.64.
Update: Still more big enterprise tech decliners:
