Oracle shares fall for sixth day in a row, drop another 3%; key factors behind slump explained

The losses in Oracle Corp persisted on Tuesday, September 15, with the stock falling another 3% to the day's low of $140.41 on the New York Stock Exchange. If it finishes the session lower, it will mark its sixth straight day of losses.

The shares have been under pressure since last week, even as the company's first-quarter earnings beat Wall Street estimates. The stock began the week with a 3.7% decline following co-founder Larry Ellison's decision to scrap a plan to sell $7.5 billion worth of shares.

Against this backdrop, Oracle has reportedly begun a fresh round of global layoffs as the company looks to reduce costs while shifting its focus more towards building artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Although Oracle was a late entrant to the cloud computing industry, it quickly recognised the artificial intelligence boom and has been rapidly expanding its data centre footprint, equipped with high-end processors for customers such as Meta and OpenAI.

However, Oracle lacks the massive cash flows enjoyed by larger technology giants, which have largely funded their AI investments internally. As Oracle moves ahead with its own aggressive AI infrastructure spending, the company is increasingly turning to cost-cutting measures to conserve cash and manage its growing expenses.

As part of this, Oracle has been laying off employees and has begun another round of job cuts, according to three employees affected by the move and an internal layoff email reported by Business Insider. The latest layoffs were expected to begin on Monday. However, the report did not specify how many employees were affected.

The latest round of job cuts comes after the company reported $28.5 billion in capital expenditure, mostly on data centre equipment, in the three months ended August 31.

In a briefing with reporters, Chief Financial Officer Hilary Maxson reaffirmed the company's $70 billion forecast for capital expenditure in the year ending May 2027, with an additional $20 billion to $25 billion expected to be spent on prepayments for some components.

Oracle layoffs expand

The latest round of cuts comes after Oracle began reducing its workforce earlier this year as part of efforts to conserve cash, Bloomberg reported. Business Insider also reported last month that the company was drawing up plans for another round of layoffs.

The workforce reduction has already had a significant impact on Oracle's employee base. During fiscal 2026, the company's workforce declined by about 21,000 employees, or 13%, according to its latest filing.

The ongoing job cuts are part of Oracle's “2026 Restructuring Plan," the cost of which is now estimated at about $2.8 billion, largely comprising severance payments to employees, according to the filing.

Of this amount, Oracle has already accrued about $2.1 billion in costs tied to the plan. The remaining $700 million increase reflects “additional actions that we expect to take”, the company said in the filing on September 11, news agency Bloomberg reported.

Oracle shares remain volatile

Oracle shares have remained highly volatile for nearly a year. While the stock has recovered from some of its losses during this period, it has struggled to sustain those rallies, putting it on track to post its first annual decline in three years.

After remaining under prolonged pressure, the stock regained momentum in March and closed that month in positive territory. The recovery continued in the subsequent months, with the shares extending their gains.

However, the recent sell-off has erased a part of those gains, leaving Oracle shares down 26% so far in 2026 and widening the gap from their record high to nearly 58%. Oracle shares had scaled an all-time high of $345 apiece in September 2025.

(With inputs from Bloomberg)

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