Industrial Stocks Are Soaring, Thanks to Oracle’s Incredible Quarter

GE Vernova and other industrial stocks jumped after Oracle’s earnings report. (Qilai Shen/Bloomberg)

Database and AI cloud services provider Oracle had a quarterly report for the ages, bolstering investor confidence in the artificial-intelligence trade, and sending industrial stocks soaring.

Tuesday evening, Oracle reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.47 for its fiscal first quarter. Wall Street was looking for $1.48. The penny miss didn’t matter, though. Backlog was the thing that excited investors: Oracle’s contracted backlog rose to $455 billion for the August quarter, up from just $138 billion at the end of May.

Oracle customers have a seemingly insatiable demand to rent AI servers in the cloud. Oracle shares surged 36% on Wednesday, closing at $328.33, adding some $240 billion in market value.

Oracle’s results are helping a host of other companies—including manufacturing firms, many of which provide data center and power infrastructure.

Shares of electrical infrastructure providers Eaton, Schneider Electric, and Amphenol gained 4%, 2.5%, and 2%, respectively, on Wednesday, while the S&P 500 rose 0.3% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.5%. Apple and Amazon.com stock, both down more than 3%, weighed on the Dow.

Shares of data center infrastructure provider Vertiv rose 8.9%.

Power technology providers GE Vernova and Siemens Energy added 6.3% and 4.6%, respectively.

Grid infrastructure providers Quanta Services and Sterling Infrastructure rose 4.5% and 5%, respectively.

Year to date, those eight stocks are up roughly 50% on average through midday trading. Wednesday’s price action shows how important AI is to just about every stock these days.

The Industrial Select Sector SPDR exchange-traded fund rose 0.7% in midday trading. That ETF also includes shares of airlines and logistics providers, which weren’t getting an Oracle-bump. Year to date, the ETF is up about 15%.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com