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Technology Stocks : Oracle Corporation (ORCL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael who wrote (10937)	6/8/1999 10:58:00 PM
From: Maverick	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19080

Oracle Put Options Soar on Speculation Company May Report Negative News Technology News Tue, 08 Jun 1999, 10:55pm EDT Oracle Put Options Soar on Speculation Company May Report Negative News By Mylene Mangalindan Oracle Put Options Soar on Negative News Speculation (Update1) (Updates with closing stock prices. Adds earnings date.) Redwood Shores, California, June 8 (Bloomberg) -- Volume soared for options betting that shares of No. 1 database software maker Oracle Corp. will fall as traders and investors speculated that the company would report negative news. The volume of put options for June surged to 12,954, or 15 times their three-month daily average of 814. Put options are the right to sell shares at a specified price and date. Investors in puts are betting that the company's shares will fall. ''Those puts are very expensive. They're expensive for a reason. They're expecting bearish news,'' said Paul Foster, a trader at 1010 Wall Street, a Chicago-based options trading firm. Redwood Shores, California-based Oracle has struggled along with software makers PeopleSoft Inc. and Baan Co. as demand for software has slowed and corporations have delayed purchases to fix the Year 2000 computer bug. Investors also expressed concern in mid-May because some analysts said they expect a slowdown in sales of Oracle's flagship database software, which some investors interpreted as weaker-than-expected earnings. Oracle spokeswoman Jennifer Glass declined to comment on the options activity. She said the company isn't planning to release any news after the close of U.S. trading today. Oracle shares fell 1 3/8 to 27 1/8. Some traders had speculated that the company would report an earnings shortfall after analyst Charles Phillips of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter reduced his per-share earnings estimate last month for the quarter ending May 30 to 30 cents from 34 cents. The company had been expected to earn 33 cents a share, the average estimate from First Call Corp. Other analysts expressed caution about the company's fiscal fourth-quarter earnings, which will be released June 15. The company is now expected to earn 32 cents a share, according to First Call. Investors also are speculating that President Ray Lane, the No. 2 executive at Oracle, will resign to take the top job at another technology company. His name has been floated as a candidate for the top positions at Hewlett-Packard Co. and Compaq Computer Corp. Lane said last month he was interested in staying at Oracle. Several Oracle put options also changed hands yesterday as 13,263 contracts were sold.