Investing

Oracle is riding the cloud to all-time highs above dotcom bubble levels

Key Points
  • KeyBanc Capital Markets initiates its price target for Oracle at $61, representing 24 percent upside from Monday's close.
  • The firm raises its rating on the company's shares to overweight from sector weight.
  • It predicts Oracle cloud sales will double within two years.
Mark Hurd, CEO of Oracle
Adam Jeffery | CNBC

Amazon isn't the only company that will make money from cloud computing and artificial intelligence, according to KeyBanc Capital Markets.

The firm raised its rating on Oracle shares to overweight from sector weight, predicting its cloud sales will double during the next two years.

"We are upgrading ORCL based on solid cloud execution and partner feedback that increases our confidence in its ability to accelerate the conversion of more than 400,000 existing customers to its new cloud offerings," analyst Monika Garg wrote in a note to clients Tuesday. "New AI and ML [machine learning] functionality could further solidify this multiyear transformation, in our view."

Garg initiated her price target for Oracle at $61, representing 24 percent upside from Monday's close.

Oracle shares reached an all-time high last month, surpassing dot-com bubble era levels for the first time. Investors are driving the stock higher as they grow optimistic on the company's transition to cloud-based offerings.

The analyst said her checks with consulting firms at industry conferences revealed rising adoption of Oracle's cloud services by its customers. She cited how only 3.4 percent of the firm's customer base have signed up for its cloud-based offerings, which means there is a large opportunity for growth.

As a result, the analyst predicts cloud sales will rise to 25 percent of Oracle's total revenue by 2019 from 13 percent this year.

"Oracle is in the midst of a multiyear transition from traditional on-premise software licensing and maintenance support to a model driven by cloud subscriptions," she wrote. "Unlike previous innovation cycles, the value of AI will be derived from the scale of data, helping elevate the power of incumbency for those having a large customer installed base and unique data sets."

Oracle is now the highest weighted stock in the CNBC IQ 100 index.

Oracle and Microsoft lead tech stocks in CNBC's IQ 100 index
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Oracle and Microsoft lead tech stocks in CNBC's IQ 100 index

— CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this story.

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