Thursday Earnings Duel: Oracle versus RIM (ORCL, RIMM)

Thursday afternoon may feel a bit like a mini-version of earnings season.  On deck with earnings reports due after the close are tech giants Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) and Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ: RIMM).  We have given some basic details from Thomson Reuters consensus data and estimates along with added color on each.

Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) may impact all the enterprise software and even hardware players. Analysts are calling for earnings of $0.46 EPS and $8.34 billion in revenue. For the quarter ahead, estimates are $0.46 EPS and $8.41 billion in revenues.  Shares are now above $30.00 at $30.49 and the 52-week range is $21.24 to $30.75.  That high is from this week. As far as Oracle, we’ll be paying attention to Cisco for that enterprise spending money even though these are mostly different dollars spent.

Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ: RIMM) is also due Thursday after the close of trading and this will be key for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), QUALCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM), and maybe even Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) on smartphones.  Analysts are calling for earnings of $1.64 EPS and $5.40 billion in revenue. For the quarter ahead, those estimates are $1.61 EPS and $5.46 billion in revenues.  Shares have backed off of late down to $59.18 after challenging $62.00 just at the end of last week.  The 52-week range is $52.53 to $76.95 and shares had risen some 50% in just the last three months before this fresh weakness.

Oracle obviously has no chart issues based around moving averages since it is at fresh highs.  RIMM, however, IS important on the charts as the 200-day moving average is $58.54 and the 50-day moving average is down at $55.97.

Analysts have different takes on these two as well.  Both have performed well of late.  Oracle is at $30.49 and its performance has shares close to the analyst consensus target of $31.77.  RIM is more controversial now and its $59.18 close compares to an average analyst target of $65.51.

Watch options trading on Thursday in these two issues. There were more than 55,000 contracts of the DEC-2010 CALLS in RIMM on Wednesday versus more than 15,000 of the DEC-2010 CALLS in Oracle.

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JON C. OGG