As reports about OpenAI failing to meet internal user and revenue targets continue to circulate, technology stocks closely linked to the company have faced intense selling pressure. However, Wedbush Securities has taken a firm stance in its latest research report, asserting that the market's panic has severely diverged from fundamentals. The firm characterizes this not just as an overreaction, but as creating an "excellent buying opportunity" for key AI infrastructure leaders like Oracle (ORCL.US).
Wedbush's rationale for the mispricing centers on a disconnect between market fear and underlying fundamentals. The analysts explicitly stated they "strongly disagree" with narratives of slowing growth at OpenAI. The firm observes "very strong demand" for OpenAI's offerings from both consumer and enterprise segments. Following its recent $122 billion funding round, Wedbush believes OpenAI possesses a computing power procurement budget sufficient for at least the next three years, suggesting no substantive crisis in its ability to fulfill commitments.
Wedbush also highlighted Oracle's anchor: a $553 billion remaining performance obligation backlog, of which approximately $300 billion originates from a five-year cloud computing agreement with OpenAI. This contract provides Oracle with unprecedented revenue visibility, granting it strong defensive characteristics compared to peers.
The firm not only reaffirmed its "Outperform" rating on Oracle but also maintained its $225 price target. Based on the current stock price, this implies over 30% potential upside. Having declined 38% over the past six months, Wedbush believes the current valuation offers investors a significant discount and safety margin.
Wedbush analysts explained that both companies are in a solid position following their recent fundraising efforts. Oracle is planning to raise $50 billion through debt and equity financing, while OpenAI recently secured $122 billion from a consortium of investors. Notably, Wedbush's positive assessment of Oracle's AI strategy is not a recent development. The firm initiated coverage on Oracle just last week with an "Outperform" rating and a $225 target, pointing out that Oracle's capital expenditures are contractually backed rather than speculative. Its ratio of capital expenditures to remaining performance obligations is approximately 9%, significantly lower than the industry average of around 45.6%.
The sell-off was triggered by a report on Tuesday revealing that OpenAI recently fell short of its internal targets for new users and revenue. Specifically, the ChatGPT chatbot failed to meet an internal goal of reaching one billion weekly active users by the end of 2025. Furthermore, in the programming tools and enterprise markets, OpenAI faces increasing pressure from competitor Anthropic, whose Claude AI model is highly regarded. User retention remains a challenge. Meanwhile, Google's Gemini AI model saw a significant surge in popularity last year, substantially increasing its user base and eroding OpenAI's market share.
The disparity is also evident in stock performance. Data shows that a basket of OpenAI-related stocks has significantly underperformed peers in recent months. Since the end of 2024, this group has risen about 75%, whereas a comparable basket of Google-related stocks has surged over 300% in the same period.
Following the news, the US AI sector experienced a broad sell-off. On Tuesday, Oracle shares plummeted as much as 7.7% in pre-market trading to $159.80, closing down over 4%. CoreWeave (CRWV.US) fell 7.4% pre-market to $104. Japan's SoftBank Group plunged nearly 10% in Tokyo trading, its largest single-day drop since last November, with a 12.11% decline in US OTC markets. Nvidia (NVDA.US) closed down 1.63%, while Broadcom (AVGO.US) and AMD (AMD.US) both fell more than 3%. The Nasdaq Composite declined 0.90%, the S&P 500 dropped 0.49%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged down 0.05%, with companies highly linked to OpenAI forming the core pressure zone for the downturn.
Despite Wedbush's bullish stance, the market panic is not without basis. According to informed sources, OpenAI's Chief Financial Officer, Sarah Friar, has expressed concerns to the company's executive team that if revenue growth is insufficient, the company may struggle to meet its substantial computing power procurement commitments to firms like Oracle in the future. This internal warning at the CFO level has injected structural uncertainty into the market.
Concurrently, plans for the expansion of the flagship "Stargate" data center in Abilene, Texas, a joint project between OpenAI and Oracle, were officially canceled in March due to a stalemate in financing negotiations and shifting demand. The project, intended to expand the data center's capacity from 1.2GW to nearly 2GW, has been shelved, with Meta reportedly considering taking over the expansion. This serves as a reminder that despite the large contractual backlog, there is potential for discontinuity between "contract signing" and "actual demand realization."
A sharp debate has emerged on Wall Street regarding Oracle's "$300 billion bet." The bullish camp, represented by Wedbush, bases its logic on clear factors: massive backlog providing revenue visibility, ample funding ensuring project delivery, and a solid long-term demand thesis. A deeper support is the idea that Oracle's substantial backlog base provides the company with far greater defensive depth than its peers, even amid short-term demand fluctuations.
However, the bearish argument is equally sharp. Some market analysts characterize Oracle's current situation as an "exposure to single-customer credit risk." With 54% of Oracle's remaining performance obligations concentrated with a single client, OpenAI, the risk becomes significant when executives at that "primary credit pillar" begin questioning their own company's ability to perform. In this scenario, the backlog could transform from a "moat" into a "point of concentrated risk exposure."
Furthermore, Oracle's free cash flow was negative $24.7 billion over the past four quarters, and its long-term debt surged from $81.3 billion to $130.8 billion within six months. This bet carries the heavy cost of substantial balance sheet expansion pressure.
Nevertheless, Wedbush analysts countered, "Given that Oracle's $50 billion financing plan is primarily supported by debt financing to fund its data center build-out, which in turn depends on OpenAI fulfilling its purchase commitments on schedule, we are confident in Oracle's ability to complete this financing. While these concerns warrant attention, we believe the pullback in Oracle's stock price represents an excellent buying opportunity. This is because OpenAI is expected to go public by the end of this year, which will provide the company with a new funding avenue from the public markets. We consider the recent worries surrounding OpenAI to be overdone. Following its recent $122 billion funding round, the company has sufficient capital to meet its computing needs for at least the next three years. This leads us to believe that Oracle's backlog will be fulfilled in the near term, and OpenAI's path to an IPO will provide ample liquidity for its long-term commitments."
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