Moments ago Oracle reported that it missed on both the top line ($11.33 billion vs Exp. $11.48 billion), and the bottom line (EPS $0.92 billion, Exp. $0.95). The company didn't blame snow (blaming Snowden would be more appropriate), and yet despite the 6% tumble in the stock price, the miss in operating results was not the most surprising aspect of the company's Q4 earnings release.
What was? The following chart breaking down Oracle's quarterly spending on stock buybacks versus capital expenditures. It speaks for itself, and also explains very succinctly why despite all the propaganda, the stock market surge is completely fake, driven by nothing more than the Fed and companies buying back their own stock, as is the so-called "economic recovery."
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Indeed, despite ORCL buying back $2 billion of its stock in Q4, $10 billion in Fiscal 2014, and nearly $21 billion in the past two years, a massive surge compared to the company's pre-Lehman buyback pattern, the company still missed.
Of course, our readers already knew this: it was a month ago when we presented the "Mystery, And Completely Indiscriminate, Buyer Of Stocks In The First Quarter [5]." Today, with a 1 month delay, the FT figured it out too [6].
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