Oracle shares close little changed on Wednesday, more than 900 employees to be laid off in China, local media reports say

Oracle Corporation (ORCL) intends to dismiss more than 900 employees in China, reports in the local media stated. The lay-offs will be mostly from Oracle’s research and development operation in China, where the company employs about 1 600 people, the reports said.

Oracle shares closed lower for a second consecutive trading session in New York on Wednesday. The stock inched down 0.02% ($0.01) to $53.99, after touching an intraday low at $53.84 and an intraday high at $54.44.

Shares of Oracle Corporation have surged 19.58% so far in 2019 compared with a 14.86% gain for the benchmark index, S&P 500 (SPX).

In 2018, Oracle Corp’s stock went down 4.51%, thus, it again outperformed the S&P 500, which registered a 6.24% loss.

The US database and cloud computing company neither confirmed, nor denied the reports.

“As our cloud business grows, we will continually balance our resources and restructure our development group to help ensure we deliver the best cloud services to our customers in China,” Oracle said in a statement, cited by CNBC.

According to 21st Century Business Herald, citing Oracle’s human resources head for the Asia Pacific region, the dismissals are part of a company-wide restructuring, which is to be on a global scale.

According to CNN Money, the 28 analysts, offering 12-month forecasts regarding Oracle Corporation’s stock price, have a median target of $55.50, with a high estimate of $61.00 and a low estimate of $33.00. The median estimate represents a 2.80% upside compared to the closing price of $53.99 on May 8th.

The same media also reported that 20 out of 36 surveyed investment analysts had rated Oracle Corporation’s stock as “Hold”, while 10 – as “Buy”. On the other hand, 2 analysts had recommended selling the stock.

Weekly Pivot Levels

By using the traditional method of calculation, the weekly levels of importance for Oracle Corporation (ORCL) are presented as follows:

Central Pivot Point – $54.91
R1 – $55.37
R2 – $55.94
R3 – $56.40
R4 – $56.85

S1 – $54.34
S2 – $53.88
S3 – $53.31
S4 – $52.73