ORCL 11/15

ORCL began trading the month of November at $39.05, and then reached a three month high on November 6^th trading at $40.64. ORCL closed on November the 13^th trading at $37.30 representing a 4.5% decrease for the month of November thus far. Additionally, this represents an 11.7% decline off of our purchase price of $42.25. This is close to where ORCL’s stock price has remained for much of the current quarter. ORCL’s cloud component continues to grow rapidly, however that growth does not appear to be well represented in the stock price. ORCL plans to hire more than 50 engineers in the next 6 months to build up its growing portfolio of Data-as-a-Service offerings. In early November ORCL launched a new cloud data product that can identify age and gender targeting with twice the precision of methods currently available on the market. On November 5^th FBR & Co’s Daniel H. Ives downgraded the rating on the company from Outperform to Market Perform, while maintaining the price target at $44. The downgrade was due primarily to ORCL lack of ability to cope with foreign currency headwinds over recent quarters in addition to the lack of M&A expected to maintain ORCL’s new cloud business. However, late last month ORCL executive Larry Ellison alluded to the idea that they were saving cash for a large acquisition in the future. Additionally, ORCL was downgraded at Morgan Stanley which maintains a $45 price target.  

Jeff Sherman