The stock market has done quite well lately, and the latest data on inflation in the U.S. didn't do much to dampen enthusiasm on Wall Street. Even after sizable gains, stock index futures were largely higher early Tuesday morning, with many investors waiting patiently to see if the Federal Reserve will choose to pause in its streak of interest rate increases over the past year.
AI stocks have been a key driver of the market's recent bullish run, and lots of tech stocks are staking their claim in the artificial intelligence space. Both Oracle (ORCL 2.02%) and Intel (INTC -9.20%) haven't seen quite the level of gains as some of their tech stock peers, but both want to grow, and AI could play a key role in their aspirations. Below, you'll learn more about why Oracle and Intel are rising Tuesday morning and which looks like the better AI play.
Oracle feeds off AI demand
Shares of Oracle were up 5% in premarket trading, adding to the 5% gains the stock saw on Monday. The software company reported fiscal fourth-quarter financial results for the period ended May 31, and shareholders were pleased to see the company getting sales from customers hungry to implement new artificial intelligence features.
Oracle's numbers were solid. Revenue of $13.8 billion for the quarter was up 17% year over year, buoyed largely by massive gains in cloud infrastructure and application sales. Total software-as-a-service revenue rose 47%, while infrastructure as a service saw an even more impressive 76% jump in sales. That helped to offset declines in on-premises license revenue, reflecting Oracle's attempts to get its customers to shift entirely into the cloud. Adjusted net income of $4.66 billion was up 10% from year-ago levels, working out to $1.67 per share.
Oracle board chair and chief technology officer Larry Ellison touted Oracle's Gen2 Cloud, arguing that it has become the top choice for customers looking to run generative AI workloads. Ellison happily cited Nvidia as a key client, and Oracle has signed up dozens of AI development companies to do their work on large language models with the Gen2 cloud.
Oracle stock has jumped to all-time highs, but it has been relatively quiet in doing so. Now, though, more investors are getting the message that Oracle wants to be a go-to provider of services that are essential to the AI development effort.
Will Intel get an Arm up?
Shares of Intel, meanwhile, picked up 3% early Tuesday, adding to a nearly 6% gain on Monday. News suggesting that the chipmaker could end up investing in the initial public offering (IPO) of a longtime industry peer buoyed investor sentiment.
Privately held semiconductor design company Arm has been looking to go public for a long time, particularly after its attempts to merge with Nvidia failed. Yet industry and market conditions have held Arm back from moving forward thus far. Now, though, SoftBank Group, which has a majority stake in Arm, believes it can finally bring the company public.
Apparently, though, SoftBank wants Intel to commit to making a significant investment in Arm at the IPO later this year. The move could be controversial, as you can find Arm's designs not just in Intel-made chips but also those from Nvidia and other chipmakers.
For SoftBank, an Arm IPO would finally unlock billions of dollars of value from its investment, freeing up capital for other uses. But for Intel, having a significant stake in Arm could help restore its tarnished reputation and get it back among top chipmakers as they vie to provide cutting-edge products for AI developers. That's a lofty goal, though, and it appears that Oracle is quite a bit further along in catering to the AI trend than Intel is.
