ORCL Q3 Earnings Preview: Can Oracle keep its winning streak alive?

Investors will be closely evaluating the company’s ability to convert its $523 billion backlog into realized revenue. Oracle shares traded higher on Thursday, following a period of increased volatility, but they remain well below the all-time highs of September 2025. The stock had a weak start to 2026, losing more than 20% since the beginning of the year and underperforming the S&P 500 index. The company has a strong track record of regularly increasing its dividend, attracting income investors, though the current yield is modest compared to peers.

Q2 Outcome

In Q2 2026, revenues increased to $16.10 billion from $14.06 billion in the same period a year earlier, but missed Wall Street’s estimates. Adjusted earnings, excluding one-off items, were $2.26 per share in the second quarter, compared to $1.47 per share in Q2 2025. The bottom line came in above forecasts. On a reported basis, the company posted a net income of $6.14 billion or $2.10 per share for Q2, compared to $3.15 billion or $1.10 per share in the year-ago quarter.

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From Oracle’s Q2 2026 Earnings Call:

“What we are seeing in the market is that we are the destination of choice for both AI training and inferencing. This is due to the fact that our Gen 2 cloud is faster and therefore, cheaper than our competitors, and also due to our ultra-high speed networking engineering that we started decades ago and that is now highly relevant for AI.”

AI Advantage

Oracle has been investing heavily in AI lately and building autonomous cloud software. By teaming up with AI leaders like NVIDIA, the company is actively expanding its foothold in the critical cloud market—a space once dominated almost entirely by Amazon and Microsoft. The company has positioned itself as a competitive option for AI training and inferencing, leveraging its high-speed networking and cost advantages. Its earlier investments in networking engineering are proving highly relevant for today’s AI workloads.

Following an upward trend in recent sessions, Oracle shares traded higher on Thursday. This price movement reflects a shift in market positioning as investors align portfolios ahead of the earnings. The average stock price for the last 12 months is $205.35.