Investors Hope For A Boost From Oracle

In a market that has been going up despite earnings warnings, investors and analysts are hoping that Oracle will really give the market something to cheer about when it reports earnings tomorrow night.

Oracle moved up its earnings report by five days to tomorrow night, raising speculation that results may be better than expected. Analysts expect the company to earn 14 cents a share, in line with a year ago.

Oracle may also have moved up its earnings date to counter the distraction caused by its hostile takeover attempt of PeopleSoft , which withdrew its plans to sue Oracle on Wednesday.

Wells Fargo issued a positive report on Oracle Wednesday, saying the company has expanded from a database and technology tools company to a highly integrated software solutions company, improving its competitive positioning against IBM and Microsoft .

Oracle stock is up 60% from our year-ago recommendation. It is still one of the very best fundamental technology companies out there, but at 33 times earnings, it’s no longer undervalued. What the company needs now is growth.

It didn’t take much for the broader market to soar on Wednesday, just a Fed Beige Book report that showed the economy isn’t getting any worse.

The Nasdaq rose 18 to 1646, the S&P 500 climbed 12 to 997, and the Dow rose 128 to 9183. Volume rose to 1.49 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.94 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by 23-9 on the NYSE, and by 20-12 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 76% on the NYSE, and 64% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 415-5 on the NYSE, and 195-7 on the Nasdaq.

Texas Instruments plunged 7.6% on a warning, dragging chip stocks lower.

Overstock.com soared 13.5% on a deal with Palm .

WebEx and BEA surged on IM deals with Yahoo .

Sun rose 4% on Java support from HP and Dell . Dell slipped 1% despite reaffirming guidance.

AT&T gained 6.2% following its annual meeting.

DoubleClick rose 4.2% on a positive online advertising outlook.

Cymer fell 3% on a warning.

And Register.com , up 0.8%, plans a one-time dividend.

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