NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / June 23, 2017 / Stabilizing oil prices and strong performances from the Healthcare and Biotech sectors helped lift U.S. markets in early trading on Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.06 percent to close at 21,397.29, while the S&P 500 Index declined 0.05 percent to close at 2,434.50. The S&P healthcare Index and the iShares NASDAQ Biotechnology Index ETF posted gains of 1.05 percent and 1.27 percent, respectively.

"It looks like oil prices decoupled from the U.S. equity market as investors realize that lower oil prices are not a sign of weakening global demand and therefore economic slowdown, but rather its due to excessive supply from the U.S., Iran and Russia," said Quincy Krosby, Chief Market Strategist, at Prudential Financial.

RDI Initiates Coverage on:

Oracle Corp.
https://ub.rdinvesting.com/news/?ticker=ORCL

Staples, Inc.
https://ub.rdinvesting.com/news/?ticker=SPLS

Oracle's shares spiked 8.57 percent to close at $50.30 a share on Thursday. The stock traded between $50.16 and $51.85 on volume of 63.19 million shares traded. The company reported a net income of $3.23 billion, or $0.76 a share, on revenues of $10.89 billion for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017. Impressive growth in cloud revenue and a slower decline in on premise software revenue, helped the company to post 3 percent revenue growth year-over-year. Company's adjusted earnings were $0.89 a share for the quarter. Average analysts' estimates had called for adjusted earnings of $0.78 a share on revenue of $10.46 billion, according to FactSet. The impressive earnings beat saw a number of analysts raise price targets for the company. Oracle's average price target is now $53.64, compared with an average target of $48.32 the day prior to the earnings release. Shares of Oracle have gained approximately 30.82 percent year-to-date.

Access RDI's Oracle Research Report at:
https://ub.rdinvesting.com/news/?ticker=ORCL

Staples' shares spiked jumped 6.24 percent to close at $9.20 a share on Thursday. The stock traded between $9.05 and $9.36 on volume of 15.25 million shares traded. Shares of the company were on the rise after reports surfaced that the retailer was close to a sale with private equity firm Sycamore Partners for more than $6 billion. Staples have a total of 1,255 stores in the United States and 304 in Canada. The company holds a 48 percent share of the office supply store market in the United States, according to Reuters. Shares of Staples have gained approximately 1.66 percent year-to-date.

Access RDI's Staples Research Report at:
https://ub.rdinvesting.com/news/?ticker=SPLS

Our Actionable Research on Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) and Staples, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLS) can be downloaded free of charge at Research Driven Investing.

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