Tech stocks today: Oracle stock wavers after earnings beat; AI in focus - Yahoo! Finance Canada
The company's total revenue reached a record $19.3 billion, up 30% year over year. Earnings per share are now expected in the range of $6.30-$6.35 per share, while revenue is forecast to be between $6.8 billion and $6.85 billion. But the event was just as much a showcase for the company's AI capabilities, as well.
Oracle posted strong revenue and earnings for its first quarter of fiscal year 2027. The stock popped after the report but wavered in Friday morning trade.
The company, which has been building out data centers for customers like OpenAI (OPENAI.PVT), said its total quarterly revenue grew 30% to $19.3 billion versus $19.13 billion expected by Wall Street. The top-line result was driven largely by a 121% jump in cloud infrastructure sales of $7.4 billion.
Adjusted earnings per share also rose 30% to $1.92 versus $1.75 expected by Wall Street.
"Customer demand for AI Cloud Training and Inferencing Services continues to grow faster than supply," said the company in its earnings release.
On the AI front, two researchers have issued stark warnings about the future AI. On Tuesday, Jacob Coxon, who previously worked at OpenAI (OPAI.PVT), posted on X that he resigned from Anthropic (ANTH.PVT), saying that neither company was taking the dangers of AI seriously.
Anthropic's Alignment Science Lead, Evan Hubinger, followed up with a post of his own, saying that Coxon is right and that he believes there is a greater-than-10 % chance that the technology could "kill all humans."
President Trump doesn't have such fears. When asked if he had any concerns about AI leading to human extinction, he said, "No, I don't have any." Winning the AI race is more top of mind. "I have concerns that if we don't win AI, we're going to be put in a very bad position," Trump added.
This comes as Wall Street eagerly awaits for Antrhopic to publicly file its S-1 investment prospectus. The filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission will provide potential investors with their first look at the AI startup's financials and outlook, as well as more information about its data center spending.
Rumors have swirled that the paperwork could come as early as this week, though more recent rumblings point to October.
Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang reiterated his expectation that the size of the AI market will reach $3 trillion to $4 trillion by 2030 during a talk at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Tech conference on Thursday. It was exactly one year ago that he made the initial prediction at the same event.
"The semiconductor industry is going to just keep getting larger and larger, which is what we're seeing now [with] these two fundamental ideas, that we have a new layer of computing with a new application and the end of Moore's law," Huang said. "Meanwhile, people are expecting these AI models to be smarter and smarter because they don't like wrong answers. Then the compounded result of that should result in a very large industry."
Oracle reported its Q1 FY 27 results after the bell today, beating Wall Street expectations, sending the stock up about 6% in after-hours trading.
The company's total revenue reached a record $19.3 billion, up 30% year over year. Cloud revenue increased 62% to $11.6 billion, driven by 121% growth in cloud Infrastructure and 10% growth in cloud applications.
Oracle reported $28.5 billion in capital expenditures, and CFO Hilary Maxson confirmed to that the company's $70 billion forecast for that spending in the year ending May 2027, with an additional $20 billion to $25 billion due to prepayments for some components.
Adobe (ADBE) reported record fiscal third quarter results and said 1 billion people now use its tools monthly, but the stock sold off after-hours.
In Q3, Adobe reported revenue of $6.76 billion, representing 12% constant currency growth and a beat compared to analyst estimates of $6.7 billion. Adjusted earnings per share of $6.13 also topped the Street's estimate of $6.09 per share, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data.
Adobe exited the quarter with $27.50 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR).
"Adobe delivered record Q3 results, reflecting the strength of our AI innovation, expanding customer reach and leadership across creativity, productivity and customer experience," CEO Shantanu Narayen said.
Narayen is set to be replaced by Anil Chakravarthy, the company's president of Customer Experience Orchestration and worldwide field operations, starting Dec. 1.
Adobe also raised its full-year earnings and revenue guidance, but perhaps Wall Street was looking for a larger guidance raise.
Earnings per share are now expected in the range of $6.30-$6.35 per share, while revenue is forecast to be between $6.8 billion and $6.85 billion.
Apple (AAPL) introduced its most anticipated and ambitious iPhone yet during a keynote at its headquarters on Wednesday: the iPhone Duo. But the event was just as much a showcase for the company's AI capabilities, as well.
Apple has been criticized for being slow to adopt generative AI, while rivals like Samsung (005930.KS) have integrated the technology into their own devices and apps. But the company shot back during the Duo launch, presenting a slew of AI-powered capabilities for its iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPod lines.
CEO John Ternus primarily focused on AI in his opening remarks, referring to the iPhone as an intelligent personal hub for users that "sits at the center of an amazing ecosystem of intelligent features and experiences that work seamlessly across the products you use every day."
That includes the company's generative AI-enhanced version of Siri called Siri AI. The improved personal assistant, which will launch in beta with iOS 27 on Sept. 14, is designed to pull information from across your apps when you need it.
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — If you're thinking SpaceX's (SPCX) Starlink is going to run roughshod over well-established wireless operators such as AT&T (T), T-Mobile (TMUS), and Verizon (VZ), not so fast.
"It [Starlink] doesn't get through buildings very well," AT&T CEO John Stankey told Yahoo Finance from the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Tech Conference (video above). "It does very well [with a] line of sight. If you have a lower-band spectrum, then it will have some decent penetration into some buildings. But it's not going to penetrate the skin of a high-rise. It's not going to penetrate a stadium where people are congregated to watch a World Cup game and be able to have the social experiences that they demand in those circumstances."
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Nothing goes up and to the right forever on a chart, and that includes spending on artificial intelligence.
"It will not go on forever," Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius said about aggressive AI spending at the firm's Communacopia & Tech conference (video above). "Of course, it's also possible that we'll find a lot of these investments are not productive. That's a downside scenario that you cannot exclude and rule out. But even in an environment where we have a positive basic verdict on, on this build out, there will be a slow down eventually."
SAP (SAP) CEO Christian Klein is aiming to push back on the Wall Street narrative that it's well behind the curve in the AI-driven software push.
"The breakthrough is definitely now our new platform, which is now becoming generally available in the fall," SAP CEO Christian Klein told Yahoo Finance from the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Tech Conference.
"On this platform, you can build any agent you want with any LLM. Then you have a very rich context layer … so that is really a breakthrough moment. And we have already a lot of customers testing the new platform."
SAP has a lot riding on it having an AI turning point.
The software company's second quarter sales rose 9% from the prior year to 9.88 billion euros ($10.8 billion). Cloud sales rose 22%. Earnings came in ahead of analyst estimates.
Despite top- and bottom-line outperformance and a 27% increase in cloud backlog, management modestly trimmed its full-year 2026 main operating profit guidance to reflect several acquisitions.
The guidance trimming did little to alleviate concerns about SAP's future. With new enterprise software vendors emerging and others moving quickly to evolve for the AI era, investors have taken a cautious stance on SAP.
Apple's (AAPL) stock historically likes the annual iPhone reveal day, at least in the months after the tech giant unveils its latest pricey whiz-bang product.
Shares of the tech giant have often exhibited a modest sell-the-news reaction immediately following launch events before recovering in the subsequent 30-60 days, according to new analysis from Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan on Tuesday.
Apple's stock has gained in the 60 days following an iPhone reveal day 17 times, dating back to the 2007 smartphone launch, Mohan's research found.
The biggest gain was 20%, recorded 60 days after the iPhone 11 reveal in 2019.
Apple is gearing up for its Sept. 9 "Surprise and Shine" keynote at the Steve Jobs Theater. It will mark a historic turning point for the tech giant as newly appointed CEO John Ternus takes the stage for his first product launch since succeeding Tim Cook this month.
Apple's first foldable iPhone (speculated to be called the iPhone Ultra) is expected to sport a lofty $2,000-plus starting price, Citi analysts said.
Qualcomm (QCOM) on Tuesday said it has entered into a multi-generation custom chip deal with Amazon (AMZN). The companies say they are also developing networking capabilities and other future data center products.
Qualcomm stock climbed more than 3% on the news. Shares of Amazon were flat.
As part of the arrangement, Qualcomm has issued warrants to Amazon for 25 million shares of the company's common stock at a price of $161.26 per share. The shares will vest in tranches based on Amazon placing purchase orders and completing those purchases with a total value warrant value of $60 billion.
"Qualcomm is pleased to work with AWS on customized silicon and connectivity solutions, bringing decades of leadership in advanced processing and power-efficient compute, to deliver breakthrough performance and enable the next generation of AI infrastructure," CEO Cristiano Amon said in a statement.
The move is a big win for Qualcomm, which is working to diversify its business as it seeks to reduce its dependence on revenue from smartphone chip sales.
At its investor day event in June, the company laid out its plans to tackle the data center market, unveiling a line of components and servers and saying that it is nearly doubling its fiscal 2029 non-handset revenue projections to $40 billion.
"We used to be a smartphone company, now we're an edge device company, and the next phase of Qualcomm is getting into rack scale infrastructure, and this is the proof that we're doing that in real time," Qualcomm CFO Akash Palkiwala told Yahoo Finance at the time.
Apple will kick off a new era on Wednesday when CEO John Ternus takes the stage for the first time for the company's annual iPhone launch event.
Ternus, who took over from former CEO Tim Cook on Sept. 1, is widely expected to oversee the debut of Apple's first foldable iPhone, as well as upgrades to its iPhone 18 Pro models and Apple Watch lineup.
According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the foldable iPhone will offer the same styling as other leading foldables, such as those from Samsung, though it will also carry a hefty price tag that could eclipse the $2,000 mark.
Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8, which features a passport-like design, starts at $1,899, while its higher-end Z Fold 8 Ultra starts at $2,099.
A foldable iPhone could draw considerable interest from customers looking for something different from the standard candy-bar-style phone.
And though the price may turn off many, the foldable's high price could make it worthwhile for the company if even a fraction of its loyal supporters buy it.