Oracle Target of Unusually Large Options Trading (NYSE:ORCL)

Oracle Co. (NYSE:ORCL – Get Rating) saw unusually large options trading on Thursday. Traders bought 41,514 call options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 15% compared to the average daily volume of 35,974 call options.

Insider Transactions at Oracle

In other Oracle news, CEO Safra Catz sold 1,837,101 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $93.86, for a total value of $172,430,299.86. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 1,118,592 shares in the company, valued at $104,991,045.12. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In related news, CEO Safra Catz sold 1,837,101 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $93.86, for a total value of $172,430,299.86. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 1,118,592 shares in the company, valued at approximately $104,991,045.12. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Jeffrey Berg sold 45,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $93.65, for a total value of $4,214,250.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 207,409 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $19,423,852.85. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 43.70% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Oracle

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Ronald Blue Trust Inc. lifted its position in shares of Oracle by 4.3% during the fourth quarter. Ronald Blue Trust Inc. now owns 22,349 shares of the enterprise software provider’s stock worth $1,365,000 after acquiring an additional 921 shares in the last quarter. CoreCap Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Oracle by 22.4% in the 4th quarter. CoreCap Advisors LLC now owns 8,566 shares of the enterprise software provider’s stock worth $700,000 after purchasing an additional 1,565 shares in the last quarter. InTrack Investment Management Inc purchased a new position in shares of Oracle during the 4th quarter valued at $221,000. Centaurus Financial Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Oracle by 11.5% in the third quarter. Centaurus Financial Inc. now owns 14,722 shares of the enterprise software provider’s stock worth $899,000 after purchasing an additional 1,519 shares during the period. Finally, Baird Financial Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Oracle by 1.7% in the third quarter. Baird Financial Group Inc. now owns 448,106 shares of the enterprise software provider’s stock worth $27,366,000 after buying an additional 7,437 shares in the last quarter. 40.96% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have recently weighed in on ORCL shares. KeyCorp lifted their price objective on shares of Oracle from $98.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 20th. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of Oracle from $81.00 to $85.00 in a research report on Friday, March 10th. UBS Group upped their price target on Oracle from $87.00 to $90.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, March 24th. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price objective on Oracle from $75.00 to $84.00 in a research note on Friday, March 10th. Finally, Mizuho reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $116.00 target price on shares of Oracle in a report on Monday, March 6th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have issued a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $95.46.

Oracle Trading Up 6.1 %

ORCL stock opened at $104.29 on Friday. Oracle has a 1-year low of $60.78 and a 1-year high of $104.66. The stock has a market cap of $281.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.42, a P/E/G ratio of 3.07 and a beta of 1.00. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $94.83 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $87.99.

Oracle (NYSE:ORCL – Get Rating) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 9th. The enterprise software provider reported $1.22 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.20 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $12.40 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $12.42 billion. Oracle had a net margin of 17.46% and a negative return on equity of 262.40%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 17.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.94 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that Oracle will post 4.01 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Oracle Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 24th. Investors of record on Tuesday, April 11th were issued a $0.40 dividend. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.53%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, April 10th. This is a boost from Oracle’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.32. Oracle’s payout ratio is 52.81%.

Oracle Company Profile

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Oracle Corp. engages in the provision of products and services that address all aspects of corporate information technology environments. It operates through the following business segments: Cloud and License, Hardware, and Services. The Cloud and License segment markets, sells, and delivers applications, platform, and infrastructure technologies.