markets

7/21/25

Verizon rises on strong Q2 earnings, boost to guidance

Verizon rose almost 4% in Monday morning trading on strong second-quarter earnings and improved guidance for the full year.

The company reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.22, beating analysts’ consensus of $1.19, according to Bloomberg, while total operating revenues of $34.5 billion were also well ahead of the expected $33.8 billion.

Wireless service revenue grew 2.2% to $20.9 billion, and the company booked more than 300,000 net additions across mobility and broadband.

Management cited “strong operational execution in the first half of 2025 coupled with favorable tax reform” as prompting an improvement to its guidance.

Verizon raised its full-year outlook for adjusted EPS growth to 1% to 3% (upping the floor from its previous outlook) and upped free cash flow guidance by $2 billion $20.5 billion.

Some highlights broken down by business units:

Broadband

- 293,000 broadband net additions.

- 5.1 million fixed wireless access subscribers.

- Fixed wireless access net additions of 278,000.

- Total broadband customers: 12.9 million, up 12.2% year on year.

Verizon Consumer

- Wireless service revenue up 2.3% year on year to $17.4 billion.

- 50,000 wireless retail core prepaid net additions.

- 51,000 wireless retail postpaid phone net losses.

Verizon Business

- 65,000 wireless retail postpaid net additions.

- Business wireless service revenue was $3.6 billion, up 1.6% year on year.

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David Crowther, Claire Yubin Oh

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF a $1 Trillion market cap

Oracle’s insane cloud infrastructure forecast is giving shades of Nvidia’s data center business

But it’s just a forecast, of course.

A businessman with his head in the clouds.

markets

43m

Oracle’s outlook for massive cloud sales growth is driving a bid to buy everything AI

“Listen, even I'm sort of blown away by what this looks like going forward.”

That’s how the Q&A portion of Oracle’s Q1 2026 earnings call started, with Guggenheim Securities analyst John DiFucci expressing amazement at the company’s outlook for hockey-stick revenue growth in its cloud business, thanks to AI.

Oracle’s outlook for cloud sales to rise in an Nvidia-like fashion to $144 billion in its fiscal 2030 from $18 billion in fiscal 2026 is fueling gains across chip suppliers, infrastructure suppliers, server companies, and power providers linked to the AI boom.

Though the gains pale in comparison to Oracle’s more than 30% advance in premarket trading, the other companies atop the S&P 500’s leaderboard include Advanced Micro Devices, GE Vernova, Vistra, Nvidia, Arista Networks, Constellation Energy, Broadcom, NRG, Micron, and Super Micro Computer. All are up at least 1.5% as of 8 a.m. ET.

It’s a similar dynamic to what we saw throughout the AI ecosystem on the heels of Microsoft and Meta’s earnings reports at the end of July, and quite different from the reaction within the chip space after Broadcom’s quarterly release last week (even if that didn’t really make a ton of sense fundamentally).

The seemingly massive rising tide prophesied by Oracle really is lifting all boats.

Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa

S&P 500 closes at record as tech heavyweights flex (besides Apple)

The Magnificent 7 did the heavy lifting, performing better than any S&P 500 sector ETF on Tuesday.

Bull by the horns

markets

16h

Oracle rips as backlog builds, but company misses on top and bottom lines

Oracle shares shot higher after-hours as the company reported a growing backlog, even though its fiscal Q1 results fell slightly short of expectations. The company reported:

Adjusted earnings per share of $1.47 vs. expectations of $1.48.
Revenue of $14.93 billion vs. expectations of $15.04 billion.

Shares were up 21% in after-hours trading, which is a pretty crazy stock move for a company with a market cap of more than $675 billion.

The market was likely impressed by a giant build in the company’s “remaining performance obligations,” or RPO, which is how the company measures the value of signed cloud computing deals that haven’t yet been reported as revenue. In a statement, CEO Safra Catz said:

“We signed four multi-billion-dollar contracts with three different customers in Q1. This resulted in RPO contract backlog increasing 359% to $455 billion. It was an astonishing quarter — and demand for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure continues to build. Over the next few months, we expect to sign-up several additional multi-billion-dollar customers and RPO is likely to exceed half-a-trillion dollars.”

Oracle Announces Fiscal Year 2026 First Quarter Financial Results

Oracle Announces Fiscal Year 2026 First Quarter Financial Results

The market was likely impressed by a giant build in the company’s “remaining performance obligations,” or RPO, which is how the company measures the value of signed cloud computing deals that haven’t yet been reported as revenue. In a statement, CEO Safra Catz said:

“We signed four multi-billion-dollar contracts with three different customers in Q1. This resulted in RPO contract backlog increasing 359% to $455 billion. It was an astonishing quarter — and demand for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure continues to build. Over the next few months, we expect to sign-up several additional multi-billion-dollar customers and RPO is likely to exceed half-a-trillion dollars.”

markets

17h

Robinhood rides index inclusion rally to record close

Robinhood Markets notched a new closing high Tuesday, as the crypto, stock, and options brokerage continued to ride a rally set off by the announcement that it would be added to the S&P 500 Index.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

Robinhood appears to be benefiting from the so-called inclusion effect, a market phenomenon where companies that are added to major market indexes can see a price move as index funds — whose holdings must mirror the membership of the index — rush to buy the stock.

For what it’s worth, it seems like Robinhood will upon entry (effective prior to the market open on September 22) be the top-performing member of the index, as its roughly 220% gain this year is more or less double that of the current leader, Seagate Technology Holdings.

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