New York, Feb 27, 2026, 17:54 EST — After-hours
- Oracle shares slipped in after-hours action, echoing a late-month dip for tech.
- U.S. wholesale inflation came in higher, dampening expectations for rate cuts.
- Traders have their sights set on next week’s U.S. jobs numbers, with Oracle’s earnings coming up in mid-March also drawing attention.
Oracle Corp shares dropped 4.6% in after-hours trade Friday, settling at $145.40. During regular hours, they ranged from $138.62 to $147.23.
Wall Street wraps up a tough February for AI-related and growth stocks, as the slide continues and investors remain split on how quickly data-center investments might actually pay off.
Inflation flared again. Producer prices in the U.S. climbed higher than forecasts in January, with that wholesale reading feeding bets the Federal Reserve will hold off on rate cuts for now.
Over the past two days, Oracle’s focus has skewed toward touting new products, pushing numbers to the sidelines. On Thursday, the company announced an extension and expansion of its title sponsorship with Oracle Red Bull Racing, putting the spotlight on an “AI-powered strategy agent” slated for a 2026 rollout at the track. CEO Clay Magouyrk pitched Oracle’s cloud and AI as tools built for “time-critical challenges.” Oracle
Oppenheimer’s Brian Schwartz bumped Oracle up to “outperform” on Wednesday, putting a $185 price target on the shares. He described the company as an “upper-echelon growth play for cheap,” even after a sharp drop in the stock on worries over AI infrastructure funding and the speed of returns. MarketWatch
The question isn’t fading. Earlier this month, Oracle projected it would raise between $45 billion and $50 billion in 2026—tapping both debt and equity—to ramp up cloud infrastructure for big clients. The company also cautioned that its short-term capital requirements could shift, depending on changes in customer schedules, funding, or potential hiccups with data-center construction.
Oracle slipped alongside other enterprise software stocks as investors pulled back from high-valuation tech, shifting cash toward safer bets.
Even so, Oracle’s risk profile is clear enough. Should capital markets squeeze harder or major cloud clients start to pull back on spending, that aggressive buildout begins to weigh on the balance sheet, not just fuel growth. In that scenario, the stock is stuck tracking rates.
This week, attention turns to the upcoming U.S. jobs data, with markets alert for any signal that could stir up the rates debate. Investors are also eyeing AI-related stocks, looking to see if they stabilize following February’s choppy stretch.
Inflation and the Fed are up next: the U.S. PCE price index lands March 13, right ahead of the Fed’s policy meeting on March 17-18. Oracle, for its part, schedules fiscal Q3 results for mid-March.
