Oracle Corporation (ORCL – Free Report) posted favorable earnings results in its fiscal first quarter. Although the software company posted a marginal revenue miss, on the earnings side, it’s been two years since Oracle missed estimates.
Oracle’s encouraging earnings results had a positive impact on the tech sector and boosted investors’ sentiment. Following the promising development, investing in technology mutual funds with a significant holding in the Redwood City-based company will be prudent.
Q1 Earnings in Focus
Oracle came up with fiscal first-quarter earnings of 71 cents per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 68 cents. This compares to earnings of 62 cents per share a year ago. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of 4.41%. In the last four quarters, the company surpassed consensus EPS estimate four times.
Oracle, posted revenues of $9.20 billion for the quarter ended August 2018, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.9%. The top line also declined from $9.21 billion generated a year ago. The company has topped consensus revenue estimate two times over the last four quarters.
The other takeaway from the release is that the company plans a massive 12 billion share buyback program.
Oracle’s Rally: Boon for the Tech Sector
Total earnings for the Tech sector in the second quarter are up 31.6% on 12.2% higher revenues, with 3.2% increase in margins. Moreover, third-quarter earnings growth is expected to be in the double-digit territory for 10 of the 16 Zacks sectors, Technology being one.
Additionally, the tech sector has jumped 15.7% year to date (YTD), becoming the second best-performing sector on the S&P 500. In fact, the tech sector’s performance is better than the S&P 500’s increase of 8.1%. Additionally, mutual funds related to this sector registered strong returns. According to Morningstar, technology mutual funds have returned 15.5% YTD.
