Oracle Is Down 56% From Its Peak. Mizuho Just Made It October’s Top Pick.

October 10, 2026

Oracle Is Down 56% From Its Peak

A director put $3.5 million of his own money in at $139


Most AI infrastructure stocks that fell hard in 2026 are still searching for a reason to recover. Oracle found four of them on Friday.

Sponsored

J.P. Morgan Is Building on This Under-$1 Crypto

While fear hits levels not seen since 2022, major institutions aren’t backing off – they’re building. One little-known crypto is being used for real infrastructure tied to moving traditional assets on-chain. With supply tightening and activity expected to rise, this setup is getting harder to ignore.

Get the full breakdown on this under-$1 crypto before attention grows

ORCL rose 4.76% to $141.62 as new AI products, a data center update, and bullish analyst coverage supported a rebound. That single session recouped nearly all of Thursday’s losses, which themselves were tied to broader anxiety over an OpenAI revenue shortfall that dragged the whole AI cohort lower. The bounce matters because of what accompanied it, not simply because it happened.

Why Wall Street Is Paying Attention

Mizuho elevated Oracle to the top spot on its October Top Picks list, setting a $320 price target, roughly 25% above the Bloomberg consensus, and projecting 35% annual revenue growth from fiscal 2026 through 2030, underpinned by an estimated $638 billion AI cloud order backlog. That target implies more than 125% upside from Friday’s close. Mizuho is not anchoring its call to sentiment; it is anchoring it to signed contracts.

The backlog is real. Remaining Performance Obligations climbed $209 billion year-over-year to $664 billion as of Oracle’s fiscal Q1 report on September 10, 2026. Cloud revenues increased 62% to $11.6 billion that quarter, driven by 121% growth in Cloud Infrastructure. These are not estimates. They are already booked.

Then there is the insider signal. Oracle director Stephen Rusckowski purchased 25,000 shares at an average price of $139.352, totaling approximately $3.48 million, according to an SEC Form 4. Rusckowski, the former CEO of Quest Diagnostics, joined Oracle’s board in November 2025. His September 29, 2026 transaction represents his first reported open-market purchase since joining the company. Directors who commit $3.5 million of personal capital to a first purchase are typically not making a casual point.

Sponsored

Big Tech Must Pay!

They ran your power bill up 80%…

They eliminated nearly 1 MILLION American jobs…

And they got richer than God doing it.

Today, one in six American households can no longer keep up with the electric bill.

But earlier this year, President Trump made one move that puts their share of a $1.4 TRILLION power bill back on them. And guess what?

This unique state-manded expense could help investors pay for retirement.

Click here to see President Trump’s “AI Restitution Plan”

The Business and What Is Driving the Opportunity

Oracle announced Fusion Claw, a governed AI execution runtime for Oracle Fusion Agentic Applications that combines AI reasoning with deterministic enterprise computation, while its financial services division launched Oracle Nexus Case Flow and Oracle Nexus Reach, agentic AI tools built to assist financial institutions with anti-crime investigations and compliance workflows. These are not research-stage products. They plug into existing enterprise deployments where Oracle already has the database relationship.

Oracle also affirmed that its Project Jupiter AI data center campus in New Mexico remains on schedule and that the company is “fully committed to New Mexico,” directly countering the prior day’s headlines about pipeline delays and construction setbacks. The statement matters because Project Jupiter is the single biggest source of institutional doubt about ORCL right now.

What Could Go Wrong

The risks are real and worth naming precisely. Project Jupiter has faced regulatory challenges, community resistance, and environmental scrutiny, and roughly $18 billion of project finance loans tied to the campus have traded below par in the secondary market. A natural gas pipeline associated with the site has been pushed back nearly six months to February 1, 2027, after regulators denied permits. Oracle says the 2028 target stands. The credit market is not entirely convinced.

Capital expenditures in the fiscal first quarter rose to $28.5 billion from $8.5 billion a year ago. Free cash flow was negative about $5 billion for Q1 as Oracle continued to execute on investments to support Cloud Infrastructure growth. Burning cash at this pace requires the backlog to convert on schedule. Any slippage in data center timelines flows directly into revenue guidance risk.

Sponsored

Inside the Nuclear Revival Reshaping Energy Markets

Governments worldwide are investing billions to revive a proven energy source. Supply chains are tightening, demand is rising, and select companies stand to benefit. The Nuclear’s Second Act report explains what’s happening next.

Click here for your detailed brief

Other Oracle insiders have been net sellers recently, creating a more mixed picture of insider sentiment despite Rusckowski’s sizable vote of confidence. One director’s open-market buy is meaningful context, not a verdict.

The Bottom Line

Oracle is not a comfortable stock. It is down more than 56% from its October 2025 peak and carries the execution risk of one of the most scrutinized infrastructure projects in the country. The Investor Day on October 28, 2026 is the next hard date for management to address those concerns directly.

What makes it today’s pick is the convergence: a verified $664 billion backlog, 121% Cloud Infrastructure growth in the most recent quarter, a $3.5 million insider purchase at $139.352, and a Mizuho call that positions ORCL as a category winner rather than merely a participant. Nvidia remains the cleaner AI trade in terms of margins and momentum. But Oracle, at current prices and with this combination of catalysts, offers a risk-reward that is harder to dismiss than the stock chart suggests.

More From Author

The Contractor Deadline That Makes PQC a 2026 Trade

This tiny piece of glass could be bigger than GPUs

Live Market Pulse

The charting technology is provided by TradingView. Learn how to use theTradingView Stock Screener.