When tech giant Oracle, a linchpin of the artificial intelligence boom, reports quarterly earnings today, investors expect it to live up to its name — which in antiquity referred to a medium providing insight into the unknown.

The unknown being where AI, an increasingly agita-prone trade, is heading in 2026.

Shares and Swaps

For decades following its 1977 founding, Oracle was known for enterprise software: In a 1993 cover story, Fortune dubbed chairman Larry Ellison “software’s other billionaire” after Microsoft’s Bill Gates, featuring him in a full-cut suit with peak lapels that screamed industry titan of the late 20th century. This year, Oracle vaulted to the forefront of the new century by pivoting to data centers and cloud infrastructure to support the artificial intelligence boom. Its share price, up 33% in 2025, made Ellison the world’s wealthiest man for a brief stint.

But a certain calculus worries some investors. In September, Oracle announced a $300 billion deal with OpenAI that would see the ChatGPT-maker buy computing power over five years starting in 2027. Building out the capacity to provide that power, however, requires piling up more debt than can fit in a full-cut early ’90s power suit. After the deal was announced, Oracle raised $18 billion from a bond sale and now carries over $100 billion in debt. Deals with Meta, Nvidia and Softbank underscore concerns that Oracle is overexposed to the AI bubble. Those worries have manifested in two ways.

First, as of Tuesday’s close, Oracle’s share price is down 32% from its record September high. Second, options traders piled into the company’s credit-default swaps in recent months as the price to guard against Oracle defaulting on its debt tripled (no one expects that to happen, but if AI bubble fears push the swaps up more, those traders could profit). Which sets the stage for today’s earnings, now considered a test of the market’s confidence in the AI trade. Many analysts think the worst fears are overblown:

• “While we await more certainty on the magnitude of capex/debt, we view the concerns around Oracle’s debt health (rising default risk implied CDS prices) to be overstated as more of a thematic AI hedging dynamic,” wrote Citi analysts, who recommend Oracle stock as a buy and expect to see “strong” AI bookings reflected in today’s report.
• “Based on our very rough sum-of-the-parts analysis, we believe there is little to no value from the OpenAI deal baked into Oracle shares at this point, which would seem to create some upside optionality from current levels,” wrote Evercore ISI analysts, who maintained their outperform rating. Overall, Wall Street analysts expect 15% revenue growth to $16.2 billion in the quarter.

An Assist from Altman: Evercore advised investors to exercise “some patience as turning sentiment will take time,” adding that OpenAI could lend a helping hand if, as expected, it soon puts out an updated version of its chatbot that rivals or surpasses Google’s latest Gemini release.

The “no hire, no fire” job market of yesteryear has given way to something far stranger.

On Tuesday, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published its October Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), delayed due to the government shutdown, which showed an unexpectedly strong uptick in job openings. It came just a week after ADP payroll data revealed that November marked the biggest loss of US private sector jobs since March 2023. So is it a “more hire, more fire” job market? Probably not.

JOLT to the System

The number of available positions climbed to 7.67 million in October, according to the JOLTS report. That’s up from September, good for the highest mark in five months, and beat all the estimates of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. In fact, most predictions had forecast a decline in open roles, commensurate with the uptick in layoffs shown in both JOLTS and ADP data. On the other hand, the uptick in openings was driven by industries both predictable and seasonal: healthcare, the most significant driver of job growth all year, as well as retail and warehousing.

Still, there may be reason to believe the delayed JOLTS data is not a pixel-perfect snapshot:

• Due to the shutdown, the bureau had to forgo its usual “monthly alignment methodology” to clean up the JOLTS data, Comerica Bank Chief Economist Bill Adams told The Daily Upside, adding “this release should be taken with more than the usual grain of salt.”
• Meanwhile, the most recent jobs report from consultant firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, published last week, showed that US employers have announced 497,151 planned hires through November this year, down 35% year-over-year and the lowest mark since 2010. The 372,520 planned seasonal hirings this year are the fewest since the firm began tracking the stat in 2012.

Cut It Out: All told, traders are penciling in a roughly 88% chance of a cut, same as a week ago, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool. After that? “The Fed will likely give ambiguous forward guidance about the January decision,” Adams said, citing the shutdown-spurred delay of government data. “They will get a lot more information between now and the next decision on January 28. If the job market softened further at the turn of the year, the Fed is likely to make another cut in January, despite frustrations that inflation is still over their target.” Yes, we’re already talking about the next Fed meeting.

Ares Management just joined the S&P 500 club and is already reaping the benefits of membership. The alternative asset manager’s stock got a 7.27% boost on Tuesday as investors digested its new street cred.

The S&P Dow Jones Indices announced Monday that Ares would replace Kellanova — owner of pantry favorites like Pringles, Pop-Tarts and Cheez-It — before the market opens on Thursday. The switch-up comes as fellow food company Mars is set to complete a $36 billion acquisition of Kellanova.

Private Credit Boom

Ares’s welcome to the index comes after an initial snub. Last week, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that building materials provider CRH, online used-car dealer Carvana, and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning company Comfort Systems USA would join the S&P 500 in its quarterly rebalance. They replace automotive equipment provider LKQ, flooring supplier Mohawk Industries and specialty chemicals company Solstice Advanced Materials, which was recently spun off from Honeywell.

Ares, which has roughly $596 billion of assets under management, will now beat those newcomers — who are set to join the index Dec. 22 — into a much-coveted spot in the large-cap equities gauge. Companies must meet certain criteria to join the index, including having a market capitalization of at least $22.7 billion, but the ultimate decision is with the index committee.

Ares is a major player in the private-credit market, which is facing both a surge in popularity and mounting concerns:

• Morgan Stanley estimates the size of the private credit market at $3 trillion at the start of 2025 (up from $2 trillion in 2020) and expects it to reach $5 trillion by 2029. Morningstar senior equity analyst Greggory Warren wrote last month that larger players like Ares should have some advantages in the space amid high customer demand for alternative assets and investors’ efforts to limit the number of providers they use.
• Still, experts are worried about the risk, illiquidity and opaque lending standards that private markets bring to the financial system.

Beating Rivals: With its ascension to the S&P 500, which means that funds tracking the index will buy up the company’s shares, Ares ended the trading day Tuesday by paring its year-to-date losses to just 1.47%. Competitors KKR and Blackstone have tumbled closer to 9% and 10% year-to-date, respectively.