New York, February 19, 2026, 11:45 EST — Regular session
- Oracle shares rise about 1% in late-morning trade after Wednesday’s gain
- Data-center power supply is back in focus after fresh detail on a long-term DTE Energy pact tied to an Oracle site
- Investors are looking ahead to Oracle’s next quarterly update in March for signals on spending and cloud demand
Oracle Corp (ORCL) shares rose about 1.1% to $157.93 in late-morning trading on Thursday, extending a two-day rebound after a sharp pullback earlier this week.
The stock has become a proxy for a bigger fight in U.S. markets: whether the rush to build artificial intelligence data centers can clear a basic constraint — power. A Washington Post report on Thursday said Silicon Valley groups are pushing ahead with off-grid or dedicated power projects as utilities struggle to keep up. (The Washington Post)
That backdrop has made even routine disclosures about electricity supply matter. DTE Energy has a long-term agreement to supply 1.4 gigawatts of power to Oracle’s planned data center in Saline Township, Michigan, with Oracle paying the full electricity cost, Barron’s reported. “The quality of the offtaker matters,” Jefferies analyst Julien Dumoulin-Smith said. (Barron’s)
Oracle ended Wednesday up 1.43% at $156.17, beating gains in Microsoft and Alphabet in an up session for U.S. stocks, according to MarketWatch. The shares remain about 55% below their 52-week high, MarketWatch data showed. (MarketWatch)
Michigan regulators in December conditionally approved special contracts for DTE’s utility unit to supply power to the Washtenaw County data center and ordered safeguards meant to protect other customers from footing the bill, Reuters reported. The state also required DTE to curb the data center’s load before interrupting service to other customers during emergencies. (Reuters)
Oracle, for its part, has tried to get ahead of local concerns around land, water and energy. In a blog post on Tuesday, the company said three-quarters of the Saline Township campus would remain farmland, wetlands and open space, and said it “pay[s] our own way on energy” so “ratepayers’ bills and electric grid reliability are never impacted.” (Oracle)
Investors are still digesting how Oracle plans to fund its buildout. Earlier this month, Oracle said it expected to raise $45 billion to $50 billion in 2026 through a mix of stock sales and debt to add cloud infrastructure capacity, after worries surfaced over the cash demands of its data-center expansion with OpenAI. “The perception is that Oracle’s fortunes are now heavily tied to OpenAI,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell. (Reuters)
Those worries flared in December after Oracle’s forecasts missed Wall Street targets and it flagged a step-up in capital expenditures, or capex — money spent on data centers and equipment — for fiscal 2026. “The current weakness is more capex investment cycles needed to support demand,” BofA Global Research analysts wrote at the time. (Reuters)
But power and permits remain the choke points. Delays, local resistance, or higher-than-expected grid upgrade bills can stretch out returns, and any stumble in cloud demand would leave investors questioning how fast Oracle can fill new capacity without crimping margins.
Traders are also watching how Oracle stacks up against larger cloud rivals as corporate AI spending shifts from pilots to production work. Price action has been quick to punish any sign that the buildout is getting ahead of near-term revenue, even when management argues the spending is unavoidable.
The next hard checkpoint is Oracle’s quarterly report, expected on March 9, according to Yahoo Finance’s earnings calendar, when investors will look for updated guidance on growth and spending. (Yahoo Finance)
