-- Oracle (ORCL) is on track to become a "foundational" infrastructure provider for the artificial intelligence revolution, with investors misreading the risks tied to its capital spending, Wedbush Securities said in a Friday client note.
The brokerage initiated its coverage on the cloud computing company with an outperform rating on the stock and a 12-month price target of $225. Shares of the firm were up 1.6% in the most recent premarket activity, having lost 9.6% so far this year.
Wedbush believes Oracle is in the early stages of a backlog-driven AI expansion, with its cloud infrastructure service having a key advantage over complex legacy cloud platforms. The company's strategy to integrate proprietary enterprise data with strong AI models is also creating real-world business value, according to the brokerage.
"We believe Oracle is in the early innings of a significant repositioning as it executes on this generational opportunity," Wedbush analysts, including Dan Ives, wrote in the note. "The vision is supported by partnerships with AI leaders like OpenAI and Nvidia (NVDA), and endeavors like the Stargate project."
The downside case on Oracle centers on its capital expenditures and negative free cash flow, but this view is "backward-looking" and "fails to appreciate the scale of contracted demand underpinning the investment," Wedbush said.
Oracle's remaining performance obligations have increased to $553 billion, driving its capital expenditure-to-RPO ratio to about 9%, compared with the group average of roughly 45.6%, Wedbush said. "This demonstrates that spending is not speculative but is deployed to service a massive backlog," according to Ives.
In February, Oracle disclosed plans to raise between $45 billion and $50 billion this year to expand its cloud infrastructure business through a combination of debt and equity financing. The company said at the time that it would raise funds to build additional capacity and meet the contracted demand from its largest cloud customers, including Nvidia.
"As Oracle continues to convert its backlog into revenue, we expect the market narrative to shift from focusing on capex risk to the durable, long-term growth story that is unfolding," Ives wrote in the note.