Wednesday was a low-volume day of mixed trading that was again hampered by a poor performance from the energy sector. The S&P 500 Index fell 0.1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.3%, but the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.7% by day’s end.
As we enter Thursday’s trade, Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL) and Steelcase Inc. (NYSE:SCS) are at the forefront thanks to quarterly earnings, while Weibo Corp (WB) (NASDAQ:WB) is taking a knock to the noggin early amid an apparent punishment by Chinese officials.
Oracle Corporation (ORCL)
Oracle shares are booming at the open thanks to the company’s standout fiscal fourth-quarter report.
Oracle reported profits of 89 cents per share, 11 cents ahead of Wall Street expectation. Revenues of $10.9 billion were also better than the consensus estimate by about $400 million. That was led by Software as a Service, whose revenues jumped by 67% to $964 million, though Cloud Platform as a Service enjoyed a 40% boost to $397 billion.
Subscription software was an especially strong part of Oracle’s period as it came in north of $1 billion for the first time in the company’s history.
The company’s budding cloud infrastructure business is also starting to make waves, with a 23% improvement in revenues to $208 million.
Looking ahead, Oracle forecast 4% to 6% sales growth in fiscal 2018, as well as 59 to 61 cents per share in adjusted profits. Both compared well to expectations for 3.9% revenue growth and 59 cents per share in earnings.
One of the company’s segments for the future is cloud, and its cloud infrastructure as a service revenue rose 23% year-over-year at $208 million.
ORCL stock is now poised to jump more than 10% higher this morning, which will break through its 2017 highs from mid-March and push it to highs last seen in the dot-com era.
Steelcase Inc. (SCS)
Steelcase — the former home of new Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) CEO Jim Hackett — also posted its quarterly earnings results yesterday, and it’s not faring nearly as well.
SCS shares are getting blasted this morning as net income of $18.1 million (15 cents per share) came in 3 cents worse than expectations. Sales of $735.1 million were a little more than 2% better year-over-year, but came up well shy of expectations for $745 million.
Worse, the office-furniture maker provided dreadful current-quarter guidance. Its earnings range of 21 to 25 cents per share came in miles below expectations of 36 cents, while revenues of $750 million to $780 million weren’t enough to satisfy estimates for $800 million.
SCS shares are plunging by more than 17% on Thursday morning.
Weibo Corp (ADR) (WB)
WB stock is reeling this morning on developing news out of China, where a regulator has supposedly told Weibo to stop its audio and video services, according to a Bloomberg report.
While no official reason has yet been provided, speculation is that the regulator is coming after Weibo for failure to weed out “negative” commentary.
WB shares are off about 7% this morning, while parent Sina Corp (ADR) (NASDAQ:SINA) is off by more than 4%.
