Oracle shares rise as company forecasts US$30 billion in free cash flow

Oracle shares gained as much as 14% after the company forecast US$30 billion in free cash flow for the year ending May 2029, Bloomberg reported. Analysts had anticipated that cash flow would remain negative for that period.

Speaking at Oracle’s annual conference in Las Vegas, chief financial officer Hilary Maxson said free cash flow would become positive late in fiscal 2028, following two years when data center spending would peak.

Oracle said new fundraising through May 2030 would not exceed US$20 billion, with equal portions coming from equity and debt. The company expects vendor financing, hardware supplied by customers and advance customer payments to lower its upfront cash needs.

The forecast follows heavy investment as Oracle expands from databases into AI computing, including data centers for OpenAI and other customers. For the year ending May 2026, it recorded negative free cash flow of US$23.7 billion after spending US$55.7 billion on data centers.

S&P lowered Oracle’s credit rating in July to one notch above junk. Before the share-price jump, the stock had fallen 33% during the year.

Oracle retained its fiscal 2030 revenue target of at least US$225 billion. Maxson also outlined plans to add seven gigawatts of data center capacity over the next couple of years, bringing total capacity above 10 gigawatts by the close of fiscal 2028.