Oracle Falls More Than 13% on Ugly Earnings Miss

Enterprise software giant Oracle ORCL has lost over $17 billion off of its market cap on Wednesday after the company missed Wall Street earnings and revenue estimates on Tuesday after the closing bell. At last check, the stock had shed 13.57% on very heavy volume and was trading at $25.22. Oracle reported earnings per share of $0.54 versus Street estimates of $0.57. Revenues were also light at $8.8 billion versus the Street which was at $9.23 billion. The bad earnings miss is clearly a disappointment for shareholders as the company has been an elite performer in the large-cap tech space over the last several years. After today's plunge, however, shares are down more than 19% in 2011. Given Oracle's size and significant role in the enterprise market, the bad numbers may signal a softening economy. In any case, it appears that the report from ORCL is having an effect on the entire NASDAQ composite on Wednesday which has lost more than 2%, compared to losses of 0.71% and 0.75% for the Dow and S&P, respectively. Traders looking for realtime earnings updates can get a free trial to Benzinga's news feed, Benzinga Pro, here.