Oracle Fires on All Cylinders

Oracle posted better than expected results late Thursday on strong application and database sales.

Orcale, which pre-announced better than expected results last week, reported May quarter earnings of 29 cents a share. Sales rose 25% to $4.85 billion, with database and middleware new license revenues up 18% and applications new license sales up 83%, or 56% on an organic growth basis (excluding acquisitions). Services revenues rose 13%.

The company claimed share gains in both the applications and database markets. Siebel sales were particularly strong.

For the August quarter, Oracle projected in-line earnings on better than expected sales growth of about 20%.

Oracle shares traded modestly lower after hours.

The broader market fell Thursday after bond yields hit four-year highs and a larger than expected decline in leading indicators raised slowdown fears. The Federal Reserve is expected to continue its two-year rate-hike campaign when it meets next week.

The Nasdaq lost 18 to 2122, the S&P 500 fell 6 to 1254, and the Dow gave back 60 to 11,019. Volume declined to 2.14 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.71 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led 21-11 on the NYSE, and 17-12 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 71% on the NYSE, and 77% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 28-172 on the NYSE, and 52-115 on the Nasdaq.

Baidu.com fell 5% on news that Google sold its 2% stake in the company, ending hopes for a buyout of the Chinese search leader by Google.

Adobe rose 3% on a deal with Google.

Novell surged on big changes at the top.

Jabil fell 2.7% on more disappointing results.

Nice Systems surged on its results.

Pacific Internet jumped 18% on a sweetened buyout offer.

Phoenix Tech and Xyratex fell on their results.

Real Networks tumbled on a Goldman Sachs downgrade.