Oracle shares fall from 9-year high after earnings

BOSTON (Reuters) - Oracle Corp (ORCL.O) shares fell as much as 2.3 percent on Friday, dropping from a nine-year high, on profit taking by some investors following a strong earnings report.

Analysts see few catalysts for the stock in the near future, despite an optimistic earnings forecast from the Silicon Valley-based company run by billionaire Larry Ellison and largely positive Wall Street research notes.

Oracle shares have already risen 19 percent in the three months before the Thursday results, versus a 10 percent gain in the Nasdaq Composite Index.

On top of that, some investors are concerned that Oracle could stumble as it integrates money-losing Sun Microsystems, which Oracle bought in January for $7.5 billion bringing it into the hardware market for the first time.

"Oracle did not do a good job explaining how things will shake out," said Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with Global Equities Research. "There are too many moving parts to make sense of. If you are confused, you don't put new money into Oracle."

Those worries overshadowed comments that suggested Oracle, the world's third-largest software maker, is benefiting from a turnaround in corporate spending on technology.

Oracle projected new software sales would rise between 3 percent and 13 percent in its current quarter. It was the first time in more than a year that Oracle did not tell investors that sales might fall.

Oracle shares fell 47 cents, or 1.8 percent, to $25.57 in morning Nasdaq trade, after dropping as low as $25.43. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.5 percent. The software maker's shares had hit a nine-year high of $26.25 on Thursday.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle; Editing by Derek Caney)