Looking Ahead of Wall Street: Oracle Corporation, BlackBerry Ltd, Nike Inc

By Carly Forster

Oracle Corp, Blackberry, and Nike are all set to announce their quarterly reports this week. What should investors be looking for?

Oracle:

Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) is scheduled to announce its second quarter fiscal 2015 earnings report on Wednesday after the market closes. The company is expected to post $0.64 earnings per share, down from $0.66 earnings per share the same quarter last year.

For the past 3 consecutive quarters, Oracle has missed earnings estimates by roughly 2-4 cents. In addition, this is the first earnings reports since Larry Ellison stepped down as president and stepped in as Chairman.

In the last 3 months Oracle insiders sold 1.81 million shares, and in the past year they sold a total of $9.3 million shares. Since 2012, Oracle has been supporting their stock with increased share buybacks. This will continue, but at a slower pace.

In addition, new license revenue and cloud software subscription revenue will be more of a focus this quarter than in the past.

On average, the analyst consensus for Oracle is HOLD.

Blackberry:

BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) is set to announce its third quarter fiscal 2015 earnings report on Friday before the market opens. The company is expected to post a loss of $-0.05 per share, marking a massive improvement from the same quarter last year when they posted a loss of $-0.67 per share.

Blackberry has seen a major positive turnaround ever since John Chen stepped in as CEO in November 2013 and they are continuing in this pattern with expectations to become cash flow positive in 2015. One of the reasons for this is due to the shift in Blackberry’s focus from smartphones to software.

Back in November, Blackberry launched its BES 12 platform that was designed for businesses that connects with all mobile devices, including none Blackberry phones. They even got 5.1 million licenses to sign up for a free trial of its platform until the end of January.

Analysts have been optimistic about Blackberry’s move away from the consumer market, but they have also been questioning just how many, if at all, of those who participated in this trial will become paying customers.

In other Blackberry news, Ford just announced that they will be replacing the Microsoft technology in its infotainment systems with Blackberry’s QNX operating system in all of its new 2016 vehicles.

On average, the analyst consensus for Blackberry is HOLD.

Nike:

Nike Inc (NYSE:NKE) is scheduled to announce its second quarter fiscal 2015 earnings report on Thursday after market close. The retailer is forecast to post $0.69 earnings per share, up from the same quarter last year when they posted $0.59 earnings per share.

Nike has continued to do a great job keeping up with competitors such as Lululemon, The Gap, and Under Armour despite a few internal setbacks.

For instance, Nike is currently in the middle of a lawsuit with three of its former shoe designers for leaving the company to start a new factory for rival Adidas. It was also announced that Nike’s Chief Information Officer left the company last week after 10 short months, citing personal reasons.

Despite all of this, Nike continues to be one of the most popular athletic retail brands today.

On average, the analyst consensus for Nike is Moderate Buy.

All in all, it will be interesting to see how these factors will play in to each company’s earnings reports and how it will ultimately affect their stocks.

Carly Forster writes about stock market news. She can be reached at [email protected]