He backed out

Larry Ellison had authorized himself to sell up to 50 million Oracle shares, roughly $7.5 billion worth. On September 11, 2026, a filing showed the plan was canceled with zero shares sold.

The plan was already odd

Ellison adopted the 10b5-1 plan on June 22, 2026, with a window running through October 24. He has historically sold very little Oracle stock, which made the program unusual from the start.

Killing the overhang

A scheduled sell program from a controlling shareholder creates constant expectation of shares hitting the market. Canceling it removes that pressure completely.

“A preannounced sell program from a controlling shareholder creates an overhang.”

He thinks it's cheap

Oracle fell 16% to 18% between the plan's adoption and its cancellation. A person close to Ellison said he views the shares as undervalued, so selling now would lock in the loss.

A brutal year on the tape

Shares closed at $150.28, down 22% year to date from $193.03 and off 50% over twelve months. Zoom out and the stock is still up 79% over five years and 334% over ten.

The quarter behind the conviction

Q1 fiscal 2027 revenue hit $19.345 billion, up 30% and past consensus. Adjusted EPS of $1.92 beat estimates, operating income rose 57%, and net income jumped 63%.

Cloud is the engine

Cloud Infrastructure revenue grew 121% to $7.388 billion. Remaining Performance Obligations reached $664 billion, and Oracle signed more than $30 billion in new AI cloud contracts in one quarter.

Building at full tilt

Oracle delivered 850 megawatts of datacenter capacity and over 300,000 GPUs last quarter, ran them at 97.9% utilization, and renewed contracts at a 20% price premium. Guidance rose to $90 billion in revenue.

The bill is enormous

Free cash flow was negative $5.4 billion against $28.5 billion in capex, interest expense climbed 55%, and Oracle finished a $20 billion equity raise. That spending wall is what the market is pricing.

“the person with the most to gain from a rebound just chose to wait for it”