Oracle: More Upbeat Views On FY Q4 Results; Will Informatica Be The Next Target?
Expectations continue to ratchet higher for Oracle’s (ORCL) results for the fiscal fourth quarter ended last week. Citigroup’s Brent Thill today raised his fourth quarter EPS estimate to 35 cents from 34 cents, boosting his full year estimate to $1 from 99 cents. For fiscal 2008, he goes to $1.16 from $1.15.
Thill also theorizes that Oracle could follow-up on its recent Hyperion Solutions acquisition by acquiring more business intelligence functionality, such as Informatica (INFA); he considers Business Objects (BOBJ) and Cognos (COGN) less likely targets for Oracle’s affections. But he also thinks other players could make acquisitions in the business intelligence sector; he lists Business Objects, Cognos, Informatica, Actuate (ACTU) and MicroStrategy (MSTR) as possible sellers, and IBM (IBM), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and SAP (SAP) as possible buyers.
There have been similarly bullish comments on Oracle recently from analysts at JMP, Pacific Crest and Cowen.
Today:
- Oracle is down 20 cents at $19.46.
- Informatica is up 8 cents at $15.27.
- Business Objects is up 25 cents at $40.35.
- Cognos is up 46 cents at $39.45.
- Actuate is up 10 cents at $6.38.
- MicroStrategy is down $1.26 at $102.70.
- IBM is down 67 cents at $105.87.
- HP is up 3 cents at $45.84.
- SAP is up 31 cents at $49.36.
Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written from Palo Alto, California by long-time Barron's West Coast Editor Eric J. Savitz. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields.
