U.S. Movers: Kohl's, On Holding, Oracle, Southwest Airlines

Scott Peters
12 Mar, 2024
New York City

U.S. stocks lacked direction after consumer price inflation in February unexpectedly edged higher, driven by a surge in gasoline prices and persistently elevated housing inflation. 

The S&P 500 index increased 0.5% to 5,210.50, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.8% to 16,022.73. 

The yield on 2-year Treasury notes increased to 4.53%, 10-year Treasury notes inched up to 4.09%, and 30-year Treasury bonds edged down to 4.26%.

Oracle Corp. increased 11.5% to $127.26 after the database and cloud computing company reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings. 

Revenue in the fiscal third quarter ending on February increased 7% to $13.3 billion from $12.4 billion, net income advanced 27% to $2.4 billion from $1.8 billion, and diluted earnings per share rose to 85 cents from 68 cents a year ago. 

Cloud revenue increased 25% to $5.1 billion and cloud infrastructure surged 49% to $1.8 billion, respectively. 

 "Large new cloud infrastructure contracts signed in Q3 drove Oracle's total Remaining Performance Obligations up 29% to over $80 billion—an all-time record," said Oracle CEO, Safra Catz.

The company also signaled strong demand for its cloud computing products and indicated sustained revenue growth at least for the remainder of 2024. 

"We expect to continue receiving large contracts reserving cloud infrastructure capacity because the demand for our Gen2 AI infrastructure substantially exceeds supply—despite the fact we are opening new and expanding existing cloud datacenters very, very rapidly. 

We expect that 43% of our current $80 billion of Remaining Performance Obligations will be recognized as revenue over the next four quarters, added Catz. 

The company also indicated that its Gen2 Cloud Infrastructure business "will remain in a hypergrowth phase for the foreseeable  future" after surging 53% in the fiscal third quarter. 

Kohl's Corp. declined 2.5% to $26.50 after the department store chain operator reported better-than-expected quarterly results but issued a weak outlook.

On Holding plunged 14.5% to $28.75 after the Swiss shoemaker reported weaker-than-expected revenue of CHF 447.0 million and net income swung to a loss of 5 Swiss cents per share. 

Southwest Airlines declined 8.5% to $30.93 after the regional airline said it plans to reduce its capacity and reevaluate its financial projections for 2024 in light of persistent delays in aircraft deliveries from its sole supplier, Boeing. 

The airline also said leisure revenue in the first quarter was lighter than expected and estimated unit revenue to range from a flat to a 2% increase from a year ago, but lower than an increase of as much as 4.5%.