Oracle (ORCL.US) growth in remaining performance obligations, or RPO, in its fiscal third quarter was “impressive,” though investors will likely be focused on the durability of that growth, Morgan Stanley said Tuesday. The software maker’s total RPO surged 29% to an all-time high of more than $80 billion in the quarter, driven by “large new cloud infrastructure contracts,” Chief Executive Safra Catz said late Monday. Adjusted earnings rose to $1.41 a share in the three months ended Feb. 29 from $1.22 a year earlier, higher than the Capital IQ-polled consensus of $1.38. Revenue grew 7% to $13.28 billion, but missed Wall Street’s $13.29 billion view. The third-quarter RPO represented a $15 billion sequential gain following a $500 million growth in the prior quarter, Morgan Stanley said in a note. “While undoubtedly an impressive RPO result for the quarter, the key question for investors likely turns to the durability of that

CFRA, an independent research provider, has provided MT Newswires with the following research alert. Analysts at CFRA have summarized their opinion as follows: We increase our 12-month target to $142 from $130, on a higher revised P/E of 21x our CY 25 EPS estimate of $6.75, above historical but below peers. We raise our FY 24 (May) EPS to $5.59 from $5.54 and keep FY 25 at $6.29. ORCL posts Feb-Q EPS of $1.41 vs. $1.22, beating the $1.38 consensus. Sales rose 7%, near expectations, led by 12% growth from cloud services and license support (75% of sales), which more than offset legacy declines. We positively view stabilization in cloud services growth (+25%) after recent deceleration, with Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) rising 49% and cloud applications (SaaS) up 14%. Despite ORCL’s leveraged financial position (net debt of $78B) and need to boost capex ($10B seen in FY 25 from $7.5B projected in