New York, February 17, 2026, 11:28 ET — Regular session
- Oracle slid 2.6% in late morning trade, lagging behind a broader market that was basically unchanged.
- Oracle is rolling out a new “sovereign” cloud in Qatar and has struck a fresh AI services partnership with Ooredoo.
- Fresh lawsuit headlines are drawing traders’ attention, while focus is also shifting to Friday’s critical U.S. inflation report.
Oracle dropped 2.6% to $156 in late morning action Tuesday, slipping from a previous close of $160.14. Shares have bounced between $153.20 and $159.18 so far, with volume hitting roughly 6.5 million.
Big U.S. tech stocks took the brunt of the decline, mirroring a wider stumble in the sector as traders fretted over the possibility that rapid AI advances might squeeze some software players. Most of the damage landed on several heavyweight names. 1
Oracle’s timing is critical here, with the company pouring significant resources into expanding its cloud infrastructure for AI workloads—and actively securing financing to back that push. Investors are quick to react to anything suggesting dilution or squeezed cash flow as those investment plans accelerate. 2
Oracle’s drop outstripped other big names—Microsoft slipped roughly 0.4%, and SAP’s U.S. shares were off 1.6%. SPY, the S&P 500 ETF, barely budged; QQQ, which tracks the Nasdaq-100, edged lower.
Oracle announced Monday that Qatar’s Ooredoo has chosen Oracle Alloy to provide “sovereign” AI and cloud services, running everything out of local data centers. Ooredoo Qatar CEO Sheikh Ali bin Jabor bin Mohammad Al Thani emphasized the entire platform will stay inside the country. Richard Smith of Oracle, for his part, described sovereign cloud access as “essential” to long-term resilience. 3
On a separate front, Bleichmar Fonti & Auld, the plaintiffs’ law firm, announced that a securities class action suit has landed in U.S. federal court in Delaware, targeting Oracle and certain executives. Investors looking to take the lead in the case have until April 6. The lawsuit circles back to the steep drop in Oracle shares seen in December following its quarterly report, according to the firm. 4
Last earnings season, Oracle landed squarely in the middle of the spending debate. Its outlook fell short of Wall Street’s expectations, and the company pointed to rising capital spending—highlighting just how fast AI-driven infrastructure expenses can balloon. 5
Rates are another headache. Bigger yields have a way of making those long-horizon growth plays seem pricey. Oracle’s cloud plans, a long-term project by any measure, can see its valuation reset fast if macro views change.
Eyes now turn to Friday’s U.S. personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, the inflation figure the Federal Reserve tracks most closely as it weighs potential rate cuts. Over at Oracle, the investor relations page remains empty for upcoming events, leaving the timing of the next earnings announcement up in the air. 6
The cloud gains might not show up quickly enough to balance out the heavy capital spending, and with unresolved legal issues plus a restless tech market, buyers are staying on the sidelines. Right now, traders are waiting for something concrete — maybe an earnings announcement, updated guidance, or just a calmer market — before getting back into ORCL.
