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

To: Brian Sullivan who wrote (15386)	3/1/2001 6:54:38 PM
From: Brian Sullivan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19079

Oracle said it would provide fourth-quarter guidance in two weeks , at its scheduled conference call. thestreet.com Oracle (ORCL:Nasdaq - news) Thursday became the latest Wall Street darling to warn of an earnings shortfall, blaming a slowdown in the U.S. economy for reduced information technology spending. Oracle forecast third-quarter earnings of 10 cents a share, a penny ahead of the year-ago figure and 2 cents shy of the analyst consensus quoted by First Call/Thomson Financial. The company also trimmed earnings forecasts for coming quarters by an undisclosed amount. For its fourth quarter ending in May, Oracle is expected to show a 25% rise in earnings, to 20 cents a share. Revenue rose 9% for the third quarter ended Feb. 28, Oracle said, while license revenue added 6%. That puts Oracle's third-quarter revenue at around $2.67 billion, some $200 million short of the First Call consensus. Oracle trading was halted ahead of the statement after the stock had risen $2.38, or 13%, to $21.38 during regular trading Thursday. The maker of enterprise software put its closely followed applications revenue growth figure at 50% for the third quarter, not the 75% it was guiding toward on Feb. 13. Oracle has aimed to boost applications revenue by 50% to 100% in fiscal 2001. Database revenue growth will be flat to slightly negative, the company said. Oracle had forecast a 15% to 20% rise in that figure only two weeks ago. The company said in the press release that its sales forecast looked good "up until the last few days of the quarter." But "with continued uncertainty in the economy, we can't predict when sales growth will improve." Oracle said it would provide fourth-quarter guidance in two weeks , at its scheduled conference call. But the company said ominously that "productivity improvements should allow us to continue to deliver year-over-year earnings growth, albeit at a lower rate than previously expected due to lower revenue growth."