By Nate Wolf

Oracle stock has had a rough few months, and now may be time to buy the dip, according to analysts at D.A. Davidson.

The firm upgraded Oracle shares to Buy from Neutral and maintained its price target of $180 in a research note Monday. The fate of the stock is heavily tied to OpenAI -- and, to a lesser extent, TikTok -- but those relationships could pay off, D.A. Davidson says.

Oracle stock was up 9.2% at $155.95 in early trading on Monday. That compares with the record high of $328.33 on Sept. 10.

That September milestone came after Oracle announced a more than $300 billion jump in remaining obligations under its customer contracts. The excitement dissipated when it came out that a single contract with OpenAI, which doesn't make a profit, accounted for the vast majority of that backlog.

D.A. Davidson has grown more positive about OpenAI's eventual ability to pay Oracle for its data-center buildout. The artificial-intelligence start-up already has $40 billion in cash on hand and may raise as much as $100 billion in new funds, D.A. Davidson estimates.

"We believe that a revamped OpenAI will return to its position as Google's top challenger and with a fresh stack of capital be able to live up to its obligations this year, including to Oracle," wrote analyst Gil Luria. "In the past we had been very critical of Oracle and OpenAI, but believe the market is now more appropriately reflecting the risks involved."

While investors mainly have focused on Oracle's AI business, the company's addition of TikTok USA could also be a windfall. Oracle, which holds a 15% stake in the new entity, took in around $800 million in revenue from TikTok USA last year, D.A. Davidson estimates.

The new deal opens the door for a deeper partnership with TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, and locks in TikTok USA as a cloud customer. In addition, Oracle likely got in at a cut-price valuation: Vice President JD Vance said the U.S. version of the Chinese video app would be valued at $14 billion, much lower than investors had expected.

Oracle still has challenges to sort out. It has some $130 billion in debt and $248 billion in operating-lease commitments, which "will burden the company for years to come," Luria wrote.

But if Oracle executes well, it has the partners, customers, and investments to dig out of that hole. The company next reports earnings a month from Monday, on March 9.

Write to Nate Wolf at nate.wolf@barrons.com

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February 09, 2026 10:10 ET (15:10 GMT)

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