I was the bagholder who previously posted about betting heavy on Oracle (ORCL) at $300.
At that post, someone asked me how I view Oracle now. At the time, I said they’d likely run into trouble next year, but still had some upside left for this year.
My thoughts back then was simple: once OpenAI goes public next year, the market will realize OpenAI’s financials can’t sustain their massive payouts to Oracle, then it kinds of short Oracle.
As it turns out, Oracle might not even make it to next year when recently red flags have popped up:
- It is reported 30%- 50% of the data centers scheduled for completion this year have been delayed or canceled;
- CFO Hilary Maxson gave a very cautious, cooling-down commentary (even Larry Ellison was absent from the earnings call);
- S&P Global rated them at BBB-.
In this AI boom, Oracle has essentially pivoted from a SaaS provider into a hyperscale data center player.
Borrowing against the future:
Hyperscale data centers carry the heaviest capital burden in the entire AI supply chain.
Upstream chipmakers are selling expensive hardwares to Oracles ( one-time pay requiring massive upfront CapEx).
Meanwhile, physical infrastructure (land, power, facilities) requires massive fixed investments with a 4-to-5-year construction cycle.
But, Oracle’s revenue comes from long-term billing to model companies. A relatively small recurring revenue does nothing to alleviate short-term financial pressure.
Concentration risk:
Nearly half of their RPO tied directly to OpenAI. If OpenAI defaults, it’s game over for Oracle. OpenAI has committed to paying $60B annually, yet their actual revenue is only around $25B.
OpenAI's own financial is not stable yet.
Interest rate risk:
Oracle has leveraged heavily over $156B in debt.
While their existing debt is locked in at fixed rates, they still need to borrow tens of billions annually to fund ongoing construction.
With inflation sticky and the risk of further higher rate, any spike in borrowing costs would be a death blow.
Luckily, their legacy SaaS business brings in $10B annually, which nearly covers their interest payments and serves as a financial safety base, but it barely helps for the current stock price.
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Some argued that skyrocketing chip prices benefit Oracle because they purchased their inventory years ago. This argument doesn't make sense.
Oracle buys chips to deploy them, not to flip them. Older chips are just depreciating assets. Even if depreciation is slower than the price hikes, selling them off would only indicate asset contraction and marginally support their borrowing capacity. It doesn't translate into net profit or free cash flow.
That said, Oracle could still pull through if:
- They actually deliver the promised 1GW of power capacity they mentioned recently, by the September earnings call (which is 4x faster than last year's pace).
- They successfully extend their client base to reduce reliance on OpenAI.
- OpenAI stays private longer to keep its cash burn secretly, or its revenue completely outperforms Anthropic, proving their ability to pay.