ORCL - Oracle Corporation

NYSE - NYSE Delayed Price. Currency in USD
57.54
-0.58 (-1.00%)
At close: 4:01PM EDT
Stock chart is not supported by your current browser
Previous Close58.12
Open58.31
Bid57.41 x 2200
Ask57.50 x 800
Day's Range57.52 - 58.53
52 Week Range42.40 - 60.50
Volume10,387,874
Avg. Volume14,273,187
Market Cap191.943B
Beta (3Y Monthly)1.15
PE Ratio (TTM)19.37
EPS (TTM)2.97
Earnings DateSep 16, 2019 - Sep 20, 2019
Forward Dividend & Yield0.96 (1.65%)
Ex-Dividend Date2019-07-16
1y Target Est55.84
Trade prices are not sourced from all markets
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  • Four Republican lawmakers ask Trump to move forward with $10 billion Pentagon cloud contract
    Reuters16 hours ago

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  • Billionaire Premji Helps Create India’s Newest Tech Unicorn
    Bloombergyesterday

    Billionaire Premji Helps Create India’s Newest Tech Unicorn

    (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Azim Premji has helped create India’s latest tech unicorn: a fast-rising software startup that symbolizes the growing investor interest in the Asian nation’s enterprise technology space.Icertis, which competes with SAP SE and Oracle Corp. to help businesses manage contracts in the cloud, has raised $115 million, propelling it to unicorn status as investors flock to enterprise software makers.The advanced-stage funding round in Bellevue, Washington and Pune, India-based Icertis was co-led by Greycroft Partners LLC and PremjiInvest, the fund managed by the family office of Indian tech billionaire Premji. Existing investors including B Capital Group, Eight Roads Ventures and Cross Creek Advisors participated. With this, Icertis has raised over $211 million.The enterprise software segment is heating up as investors from Tiger Global Management to Sequoia and Accel scour the industry for India’s next startup giants. Many are expected to be business- rather than consumer-focused, as the country’s talent pool shifts from IT outsourcing services for global clients toward designing and providing online software.Icertis said it now helps customers worldwide manage over 5.7 million contracts, from supply chain and procurement deals to employee agreements and nondisclosure pacts, that have a total value of more than $1 trillion.“As contracts get converted from static documents to digital assets for the first time in history, every dollar in or out is governed by a contract, putting them at the heart of every enterprise,” said Samir Bodas, Icertis’s co-founder and chief executive officer. “Every global company faces unprecedented global competition and needs software to manage contracts.”Icertis is currently valued at “well north of one billion dollars,” Bodas added. The company will use the additional funding to grow its business, including by expanding sales and marketing. Global compliance demands involving Brexit, tariffs, European data privacy regulations as well as rapid digitization has worked in Icertis’s favor, while technologies like artificial intelligence helped enhance the sophistication of its services.“We have been able to ride the technology wave and assert leadership in the space despite large competitors,” Bodas said, citing consultancies Forrester Research and Gartner.Icertis works on a subscription model, charging customers based on the number of contracts drawn up and tracked using its software. MGI Research forecasts the total spending by companies for such contract management at over $20 billion from 2018 to 2022, with services on the cloud growing around 37% annually over the same period.Founded in 2009 when Bodas and friend Monish Darda began exploring cloud-based applications, Icertis in 2015 homed in on building a contract management platform. Today, more than 600 of its 850 employees are based in Pune, where the product is developed. The startup operates a dozen offices from Sofia to Sydney.(Corrects wording to reflect right definition in fourth-to-last paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Saritha Rai in Bangalore at srai33@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Edwin Chan at echan273@bloomberg.net, Colum MurphyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Trump Says He’s Looking ‘Very Seriously’ at Pentagon Cloud Deal
    Bloomberg2 days ago

    Trump Says He’s Looking ‘Very Seriously’ at Pentagon Cloud Deal

    (Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said he’s looking “very seriously” at a cloud-computing contract valued at as much as $10 billion that the Pentagon is likely to award to Amazon.com Inc. next month.“I’m getting tremendous complaints about the contract with the Pentagon and with Amazon,” he told reporters Thursday during a meeting with Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the White House.The contract wasn’t competitively bid, Trump said. The Pentagon is holding a competition for the contract, but Trump said that companies are complaining that the terms favor Amazon, the dominant player in cloud computing services. Microsoft Corp. is the only other company that hasn’t been eliminated from consideration.Bloomberg News reported Wednesday that Trump recently raised concerns about the contract with aides after learning of correspondence Republican lawmakers have exchanged with the Pentagon and the White House criticizing the bidding process.Some Republicans have alleged that the contract’s terms were crafted from the start to favor Amazon, and that there were conflicts of interest involving the company as the Pentagon considered bids.“I will be asking them to look at it very closely to see what’s going on,” Trump said in apparent reference to the Defense Department, “because I have had very few things where there’s been such complaining. Not only complaining from the media -- or at least asking questions about it from the media -- but complaining from different companies like Microsoft and Oracle and IBM. Great companies are complaining about it.”Some supporters of the Pentagon process pushed back on Trump’s comments. Four House Republicans on the Armed Service Committee, including ranking member Mac Thornberry, wrote a letter to Trump on Thursday saying “it is essential for national security” to move forward with the contract “as quickly as possible.”“Further delays will only damage our security and increase the costs of the contract,” they wrote.Trump and BezosWhile Trump didn’t mention Amazon founder Jeff Bezos by name on Thursday, he has long denounced the billionaire in tweets criticizing him on many fronts -- from the shipping rates his company pays the U.S. Postal Service to his personal ownership of what Trump calls “the Amazon Washington Post.”Oracle Corp. has fought the contract process and has led a fierce lobbying campaign against the Pentagon’s plans to award the project, known as Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure or JEDI, to a single bidder. But the company lost a legal challenge last week contesting the terms of the bid and alleging the Pentagon had crafted unfair requirements and that there were conflicts of interest involving Amazon.In April 2018, Oracle’s Chief Executive Officer Safra Catz dined with Trump at the White House and complained that the contract terms seemed designed for Amazon to win, Bloomberg has reported. The final requirements for the contract were released in July of that year.International Business Machines Corp. said in a statement after Trump’s comments that it “has long raised serious concerns about the structure of the JEDI procurement. We continue to believe that the Department of Defense and our men and women in uniform would be best served by a multi-cloud strategy” rather than the Pentagon’s plan for a winner-take-all award.Oracle and Microsoft had no comment on Trump’s remarks.“We are aware of the remarks and have nothing to add at this time,” Elissa Smith, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said in an email.Intervention’s RarePresidents and their advisers often set out their visions for defense spending and technology priorities, and Trump has spoken out on matters from the cost of F-35 fighter jets to paint colors for new Air Force One planes.But it’s rare for a commander-in-chief to intervene in specific Defense Department contract competitions because they are governed by extensive laws and regulations intended to wall off billion-dollar awards from political influence, according to experts on the contracting process.“The system is explicitly set up to prevent political officials from being able to influence the outcome of a contract,” said Stan Soloway, chief executive officer of Celero Strategies LLC. The president “can’t pick winners and losers.”Federal agencies have to clearly outline the requirements and criteria they will use to choose a winning bid. Losing bidders can challenge a decision to the Government Accountability Office or in the Court of Federal Claims, contending that the ground rules set in a solicitation weren’t followed. Oracle already has lost a court case challenging the handling of the JEDI contract.But a president has more freedom to exert influence over a project’s structure and acquisition strategy, which could effectively help some companies and hurt others, said Trey Hodgkins, the chief executive officer and founder of Hodgkins Consulting.“He can shine a spotlight on the process and ask the question: Is this the best option for the warfighter? Is this the best deal for the taxpayer?” Hodgkins said. “I don’t know that it would be politically prudent to ignore executive-level scrutiny of the decision making process.”(Updates with lawmakers’ letter starting in seventh paragraph.)To contact the reporters on this story: Jennifer Jacobs in Washington at jjacobs68@bloomberg.net;Naomi Nix in Washington at nnix1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, ;Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum, Larry LiebertFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Trump vows ‘strong look’ into Pentagon cloud contract that could go to Amazon
    MarketWatch2 days ago

    Trump vows ‘strong look’ into Pentagon cloud contract that could go to Amazon

    President Donald Trump on Thursday vowed to take a “strong look” into a Pentagon cloud-computing contract that could go to either Amazon or Microsoft, as he said he disagreed with supporters who chanted a Democratic congresswoman should be sent back to her native country.

  • The Donald Strikes Back: Trump Stokes Bezos Feud By Targeting JEDI
    Investor's Business Daily2 days ago

    The Donald Strikes Back: Trump Stokes Bezos Feud By Targeting JEDI

    President Trump reignited his feud with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos by announcing he is looking "very seriously" at the $10 billion JEDI contract with the Pentagon, that the firm looks set to win.

  • Trump says looking closely at Amazon's bid on $10 billion Pentagon contract
    Reuters2 days ago

    Trump says looking closely at Amazon's bid on $10 billion Pentagon contract

    U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday his administration was looking closely at Amazon.com's bid on a $10 billion cloud contract with the Defence Department after getting complaints from other tech companies. Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp were selected in April to continue competing for the Pentagon cloud computing services that is part of a broad modernization of Pentagon information technology systems. The selection left Oracle Corp and IBM Corp out of the competition for the contract for the Defence Department's Joint Enterprise Defence Infrastructure Cloud, or JEDI.

  • Reuters2 days ago

    UPDATE 2-Trump says looking closely at Amazon's bid on $10 bln Pentagon contract

    U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday his administration was looking closely at Amazon.com's bid on a $10 billion cloud contract with the Defense Department after getting complaints from other tech companies. Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp were selected in April to continue competing for the Pentagon cloud computing services that is part of a broad modernization of Pentagon information technology systems. The selection left Oracle Corp and IBM Corp out of the competition for the contract for the Defense Department's Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud, or JEDI.

  • Report: Trump seeks answers in Oracle’s challenge to $10B JEDI contract
    American City Business Journals2 days ago

    Report: Trump seeks answers in Oracle’s challenge to $10B JEDI contract

    Redwood City software giant Oracle, eager to break up the Pentagon’s $10 billion JEDI cloud computing contract, reportedly got a lifeline this week from President Donald Trump, who’s beginning to ask questions about the size and scope of the project.

  • SAP Executives Come Out Fighting as Shares Slump on Growth
    Bloomberg2 days ago

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    (Bloomberg) -- SAP SE fell the most in nearly five years on signs that its $10 billion bet on cloud-based software faces headwinds, but the companies executives are adamant there is still room to grow.After buying U.S. startups Qualtrics International Inc. and Callidus Software Inc. to bolster its portfolio, SAP instead posted slower growth in new cloud bookings -- a keenly watched metric because it indicates future revenue. With profitability diluted by the shift to internet-based computing, a push to shore up margins failed to make progress in the second quarter.SAP fell as much as 10%, its steepest intraday drop since August 2015. The stock was down 5.9% at 3:40 p.m. in Frankfurt trading."What you’re not counting on is how much revenue will come SAP’s way by relying on” cloud partnerships with the likes of Amazon and Google, SAP’s Chief Executive Officer Bill McDermott told analysts during a call. “There’s no reason to think this is slowing down."SAP’s new cloud bookings rose 15% at constant currencies, a drop from the 26% gain in the first three months of 2019 and the weakest figure in at least a year and a half.The lower order figure is due to the fact that SAP is focusing on higher-margin sales, and that more customers chose “pay as you go” products that aren’t counted toward that metric, Chief Financial Officer Luka Mucic said. Excluding infrastructure-as-a-service, growth would be 27%, he said.The figures underscore the difficult transition to internet-based software as McDermott challenges rivals such as Salesforce.com Inc. and Oracle Corp.Cloud sales can initially be less profitable than traditional on-premise installations, and SAP has pledged to increase its operating margin by 1 percentage point a year on average through 2023. In the second quarter, the figure was flat at 27.3%, with Walldorf, Germany-based SAP blaming trade tensions for delaying software spending in Asia as well as acquisition costs.“We’re exactly on track in what we need to hit our mid-term objectives to triple our cloud revenue by 2023,” Mucic said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. “Also the profitability in the cloud is steeply increasing.”Total sales rose 11% to about 6.7 billion euros ($7.5 billion), boosted by strong growth from existing cloud customers, with revenue for the segment jumping 40%. Operating profit increased 11% to 1.82 billion euros.Uptake of SAP’s flagship S/4 Hana software accelerated in the April-June period, with the company adding about 600 customers for a total of more than 11,500 users. The software allows businesses to run tasks on their own machines or in a cloud-computing arrangement hosted by SAP or one of its partners. The company is farming out more of the low-margin computing backend to partners including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Corp.SAP stuck to its outlook for operating profit to rise at least 9.5% and cloud revenue to increase more than 33%. McDermott maintained his optimism that his strategy would pay off.The Qualtrics acquisition will prove to be a “growth catalyst,” the CEO said in a telephone interview. “There’s plenty of room to continue strong cloud bookings and cloud growth.”(Update with details from analyst call.)To contact the reporter on this story: Stefan Nicola in Berlin at snicola2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Giles Turner at gturner35@bloomberg.net, Chris Reiter, Iain RogersFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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  • Trump Expressed Concern About Pentagon Cloud-Computing Contract
    Bloomberg2 days ago

    Trump Expressed Concern About Pentagon Cloud-Computing Contract

    (Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump recently demanded more information about how the Pentagon crafted a massive cloud-computing contract it’s poised to award to Amazon.com Inc. or Microsoft Corp., in order to decide whether he should intervene.The Defense Department is set to give the contract, worth as much as $10 billion over ten years, to one of the two companies next month. Amazon, whose cloud-computing technology leads the market, is seen as the favorite.But Trump recently was made aware of letters Republican members of Congress have written to the White House and military leaders complaining that the contract’s terms froze some companies -- including Oracle Corp. -- out of the competition, according to two people familiar with the matter. Trump expressed frustration he wasn’t aware of the concerns and asked aides to show him the correspondence, the people said.Trump said he’s interested in looking into the circumstances of the bid but didn’t indicate he’ll try to block the contract from being awarded to one of the two finalists, they said.Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican who recently wrote to the Pentagon to express concerns about the contract, said in an interview that he discussed it with the president aboard Air Force One last week.“He wanted to understand what the issues were, what our concerns were,” Johnson said in an interview.Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, sent a letter to National Security Adviser John Bolton on Thursday asking him to delay the contract award, saying the bid “suffers from a lack of competition.” Trump and Rubio spoke about the contract by phone the next day, a Rubio spokesman said.A person familiar with the call said that it sounded as if Trump was thinking about canceling the contract.All of the people asked not to be identified discussing a sensitive procurement issue. Spokesmen for the White House and Pentagon didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.While Trump has leaned on defense contractors to reduce costs on contracts they already hold -- and even to paint new Air Force One planes in his choice of colors -- it may be unprecedented for a president to intervene in a defense contract competition while it’s underway.The cloud-computing program, known as Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure or JEDI, has been contentious. Legacy tech companies including Oracle and International Business Machines Corp. waged a fierce lobbying and legal campaign against the Pentagon’s plan to award the contract to a single company.“Nothing good can come from President Trump becoming personally involved in an individual procurement, particularly one of this complexity,” said Steven Schooner, a professor of government procurement law at George Washington University. “Historically, the system has operated best with limited -- to no -- high-level political involvement.”Oracle lost a legal challenge last week contesting the terms of the bid and alleging the Pentagon had crafted unfair requirements and that there were conflicts of interest involving Amazon. Republican lawmakers have taken up Oracle’s cause, pressuring the White House to intervene in the Pentagon project.Oracle at one point coordinated with at least seven other companies including Microsoft and SAP America to try to block Amazon from winning the entire contract, Bloomberg News has reported. Amazon has already won a contract with the Central Intelligence Agency.Oracle declined to comment for the story.For More: Inside the Nasty Battle to Stymie Amazon’s Pentagon Cloud BidIn April 2018, Oracle Corp. Chief Executive Officer Safra Catz dined with Trump at the White House and complained that it seemed designed for Amazon to win, Bloomberg has reported. The final requirements for the contract were released in July of that year.The White House raised concerns about the contract with senior Pentagon leaders while they were still drafting the final requirements for the deal, according to a person familiar with the matter.(Updates with expert comment in 12th paragraph. The spelling of Oracle CEO Safra Catz’s name was corrected in a previous version of the story.)To contact the reporters on this story: Jennifer Jacobs in Washington at jjacobs68@bloomberg.net;Naomi Nix in Washington at nnix1@bloomberg.net;Steven T. Dennis in Washington at sdennis17@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Sara FordenFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Financial Times2 days ago

    Trump throws doubt on Pentagon’s cloud computing contract

    US President Donald Trump said he may review a Department of Defense cloud computing contract for which Amazon is a finalist, casting new uncertainty over a deal that could be worth up to $10bn for the winner. “Great companies are complaining about it,” Mr Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday, naming Oracle and Microsoft, which is also a finalist for the contract, according to a pool report. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.

  • InvestorPlace3 days ago

    AMZN and MSFT Are the Last Left Standing in the Battle for the JEDI Contract

    U.S. government contracts are big business for the companies that get them. In 2019, cloud giants Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) are battling over a potentially $10 billion contract. The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) project could be the crown jewel of cloud contracts. The deal itself is worth $10 billion, which may not directly move the needle for Microsoft and Amazon stock. Both have market caps around $1 trillion. But a partnership with the U.S. government could be worth much more for the JEDI winner and its shareholders in the long term.Source: Shutterstock Narrowing The FieldIn addition to Microsoft and Amazon, Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) were also initially in the running for JEDI. Bids were submitted in late 2018, but contenders have been dropping like flies. At one point, Amazon was so close to landing JEDI that AMZN stock investors could almost taste it. Unfortunately, Oracle stepped in and protested a potential Amazon conflict of interest in the process. The alleged conflict centers on Amazon employee Deap Ubhi, who previously worked at the Department of Defense.This month, Oracle was officially removed from the running after a court ruled that the company could not meet a set of gate criteria as of the time its bid was submitted. Google has also dropped out of the running after employees protested the bid. The company determined that JEDI would conflict with its corporate values.InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips * 4 Retail Stocks to Buy in Time for the Back-to-School Rush That leaves only early front-runner Amazon and underdog Microsoft left in the running. Microsoft Coming on StrongWedbush analyst Daniel Ives says Amazon remains the favorite, which is great news for Amazon stock. However, Ives says Washington contacts indicate Microsoft has closed the gap on Amazon in the past six months. In fact, Ives says Microsoft now has a realistic shot at landing JEDI."Based on our discussions and analysis from the Beltway it now appears this battle for JEDI is more of a ~50%/50% AWS vs. MSFT chances to win at this point rather than the runaway (~80%/20%) that it appeared to be with AWS getting ready to pop the champagne roughly a year ago," Ives says.But before Amazon stock investors dismiss a $10 billion contract, consider the longer-term. Ives estimates the true value of JEDI is around $100 billion. He says the JEDI winner can anticipate a number of additional government contracts and renewals for years to come.JEDI likely played a key role in Amazon setting up a new headquarters in Crystal City, VA, just outside of D.C. That decision is an indication of just how important JEDI may be to Amazon stock. Trump and Amazon StockAt first glance, Amazon may still seem to have the advantage in the JEDI dog race. However, Amazon stock investors have been dealing with a major headache in Washington since November 2016.U.S. President Donald Trump has made crystal clear throughout the years that he disdains Amazon and its billionaire CEO Jeff Bezos. Trump has repeatedly ripped Amazon for not paying its fair share of taxes and not paying fair rates to the U.S. Postal Service. Trump said last year that he is investigating potential antitrust violations by Amazon. He has repeatedly called the Bezos-owned Washington Post "fake news." Trump has even referred to Bezos himself as "Jeff Bozo."Last year, sources told Axios that Trump is "obsessed with Amazon." It's clearly not a positive obsession.So what does that mean for JEDI? In principle, Trump's beef with Bezos should have nothing to do with the Department of Defense or a government cloud computing contract. In reality, Americans have repeatedly seen Trump apply pressure to different departments of the government to get his way. If Trump doesn't want Amazon to land JEDI, AMZN stock investors can bet he will do everything in his power to push for Microsoft. Takeaway for AMZN and MSFTThe timing of the JEDI award is up in the air at this point. Ives says investors may get some clarity in the coming months. Amazon stock investors know AWS has been the gold standard of cloud computing since its inception. So if Microsoft lands JEDI, it could have long-lasting ramifications within the cloud industry. * 8 Penny Stocks That Have Fallen From Grace MSFT stock and AMZN stock may or may not initially react to the JEDI award news. But investors should make no mistake about the potential long-term value of the JEDI contract.As of this writing, Wayne Duggan did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. More From InvestorPlace * 2 Toxic Pot Stocks You Should Avoid * 9 Retail Stocks Goldman Sachs Says Are Ready to Rip * 7 Services Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2019 * 6 Stocks to Buy and 1 to Sell Based on Insider Trading The post AMZN and MSFT Are the Last Left Standing in the Battle for the JEDI Contract appeared first on InvestorPlace.

  • Microsoft Stock Probably Won’t Surge on Earnings — Buy It Anyway
    InvestorPlace3 days ago

    Microsoft Stock Probably Won’t Surge on Earnings — Buy It Anyway

    With its 30.5 trailing P/E ratio and its $1 trillion market cap, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock price largely reflects its current two main growth engines: its cloud business and its software-as-a-service offerings. Consequently, investors should not expect MSFT stock to rally tremendously when it reports its fiscal fourth-quarter results after the market closes on Thursday.Source: Shutterstock Still, the growth of MSFT's cloud business and its SaaS offerings could modestly surpass average expectations, triggering a small increase in MSFT stock.And over the medium term,MSFT has multiple, strong potential catalysts that could push MSFT stock much higher. Microsoft's Cloud Revenue Could Beat Average EstimatesMicrosoft's revenue from its cloud business, Azure, soared 73% year-over-year in the first quarter, and the company gained share in the still rapidly expanding cloud market in calendar Q1.InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading TipsMSFT has two important drivers in the cloud market. * 4 Retail Stocks to Buy in Time for the Back-to-School Rush First, a number of foreign countries are in the early stages of adopting the cloud, giving Azure a huge new growth engine. Secondly, brick-and-mortar retailers are expanding their e-commerce businesses and taking e-commerce market share from Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), which has the world's top cloud business. Given that situation, more and more of these retailers may decide to emulate Walmart (NYSE: WMT) and use Azure for their cloud needs.Most analysts likely underestimated the combined strength of these trends, so Microsoft's cloud revenue may surpass analysts' consensus estimates, enabling the company's overall results to come in ahead of average estimates, boosting Microsoft stock. The Valuation of Microsoft Stock Is Already ElevatedBut, as noted earlier, the valuation and market cap of MSFT stock are rather elevated. In fact, Microsoft stock has the highest market cap of any publicly traded company, narrowly beating out Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Amazon. As a result, a great deal of cloud growth is likely already baked into MSFT stock.In fact, just last week, Cowen analyst Nick Yako initiated coverage of Microsoft stock with an Outperform rating, predicting that the combined revenue generated by Azure and the company's SaaS business, Office 365 could rise by $100 billion in five years. He added that the company's revenue and earnings could easily grow by at least 10% annually over the next five years. But despite his optimism, Yako set a $150 price target on MSFT stock, meaning that he expects Microsoft stock to climb less than 10% over the next year.That's another indication that, even if MSFT reports stronger than expected Q4 results, MSFT stock probably won't rise much. Microsoft Stock Has Other Potential Positive CatalystsDuring next year's holiday season, Microsoft will release its first completely new video-game console since 2013. According to Techradar, the new console will be "the most powerful console" and "is meant to be four times as powerful" as MSFT's current Xbox One X console. Other reports indicate that the new console will be entirely cloud-based. If it also features virtual reality and/or augmented reality and highly captivating games, it could move the needle for MSFT stock.Additionally, over the last two years, Microsoft has stepped up its investment in Teams, its"collaboration software," creating a battle with Slack (NYSE:WORK), which also offers collaboration software. Some say that companies will eventually use such software instead of e-mail. If that forecast proves to be accurate, Teams could spur rapidly accelerating adoption of Office 365, creating another positive catalyst for MSFT stock.Finally, Microsoft is being considered for a a $10 billion cloud deal with the Department of Defense. The long-delayed deal is slated to be awarded late next month. After a judge recently dismissed Oracle's (NYSE:ORCL) lawsuit related to the contract, there's a good chance that the deal could actually be announced next month or soon thereafter. Keep in mind that Microsoft is up against Amazon. But in light of President Trump's open disdain for AMZN, I certainly wouldn't bet against MSFT winning the contract. * 8 Penny Stocks That Have Fallen From Grace The Bottom Line on MSFT StockMicrosoft's Q4 results could beat expectations, but given the high valuation of Microsoft stock, they probably won't cause the shares to climb too much. Positive catalysts, however, could boost MSFT stock over the longer term. Given these positive catalysts and the excellent performance of MSFT under its current CEO, Satya Nadella, longer-term investors should buy MSFT stock on dips.As of this writing, the author did not own shares of any of the aforementioned companies. More From InvestorPlace * 2 Toxic Pot Stocks You Should Avoid * 9 Retail Stocks Goldman Sachs Says Are Ready to Rip * 7 Services Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2019 * 6 Stocks to Buy and 1 to Sell Based on Insider Trading The post Microsoft Stock Probably Won't Surge on Earnings -- Buy It Anyway appeared first on InvestorPlace.

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    Business is Still Good at Alphabet: Google Stock’s a Buy

    I last wrote about Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) May 1 just after the company reported an earnings miss. Down more than 8% on the news, I recommended investors buy Google stock despite the miss. Source: Shutterstock InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading TipsHeading into next week's second-quarter earnings call, I thought I'd revisit some of the seven reasons I gave for buying GOOGL stock. * 9 Retail Stocks Goldman Sachs Says Are Ready to Rip Analysts aren't expecting much from Alphabet, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't consider buying Alphabet stock at current prices. Here's why. Analysts Still Like Google StockAlthough analysts grew less confident about Alphabet after its first-quarter results -- eight cut the Google target price on the news -- 34 still have a buy rating, with three giving it an overweight rating and only six a hold. None have a sell rating on Google stock.The target price? $1,335.22 is the average with a high of $1,500 and a low of $1,150. At the average target price, investors are looking at 16% upside over the next 12 months. I don't know about you, but I'd take a 16% annual return every day of the week and twice on Sundays.Analysts might have lowered their target prices, but when 86% of investors have a buy or overweight rating on its stock, there must be something good about the company. Google Cloud Continues to GrowAs I wrote back in May, Google's cloud operation is playing catch-up with both Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) when it comes to the cloud. Can it catch the two market leaders? Probably not, but it's trying hard to keep up. On July 11, Alphabet announced that it hired Kirsten Kliphouse as Google Cloud's head of North American sales, a newly created position, to enable it to go after small, medium, and enterprise customers.Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian has been busy filling out the division's sales team so that it can better compete against Amazon and Microsoft. In addition to hiring Kliphouse, Kurian also announced that he brought over Eduardo Lopez as head of Latin American sales, also a newly created position. Lopez and Kurian worked together for 20 years at Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) before Kurian left in 2018 to head up Google Cloud. In addition to making plenty of hires, Alphabet is also making a few acquisitions. In the past three months it has bought Looker, a data analytics firm, for $2.6 billion. Google also made a smaller acquisition of cloud storage company Elastifile and moved cybersecurity firm Chronicle into Google Cloud from outside Alphabet. "Kirsten and Eduardo are inspirational business leaders who will ensure we continue to build strong relationships with users, including HSBC, UPS, Whirlpool and many others, " Rob Enslin, president of global customer operations for Google Cloud, told CNBC in an email. "Their expertise in running multi-billion dollar sales organizations and managing large teams will be invaluable as we focus on accelerating our growth."Although Google's search business generates the lion's share of the company's revenues, these latest moves should help it grow other parts of its business, especially the cloud. GOOG Stock's Massive Free Cash FlowIn the trailing 12 months, Alphabet generated $25.5 billion in free cash flow. Given its current enterprise value is $690.1 billion, Alphabet stock currently has a free cash flow yield of 3.7%, which suggests that it's fairly valued at the moment. However, any time a business can generate 15 cents of free cash flow from every dollar of sales as Google does, it's not nearly as worrisome when sales growth slows to 17%, as is expected by analysts in the second quarter. Since 2016, Alphabet's free cash flow has been above $20 billion, which allows it to make more significant investments in all of its various businesses. Capital allocation continues to be a big reason why Google stock will continue to move higher. With Ruth Porat as CFO, you can be sure that the money will continue to be spent wisely. Financially, Alphabet has never been stronger. At the time of this writing Will Ashworth did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. More From InvestorPlace * 2 Toxic Pot Stocks You Should Avoid * 9 Retail Stocks Goldman Sachs Says Are Ready to Rip * 7 Services Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2019 * 6 Stocks to Buy and 1 to Sell Based on Insider Trading The post Business is Still Good at Alphabet: Google Stocka€™s a Buy appeared first on InvestorPlace.