ORCL reported higher profit as surging revenue from it cloud infrastructure business more than offset a decline in its software during the fourth quarter. The cloud-computing and software company on Wednesday reported a 47% increase in its cloud revenue, to $9.9 billion, which includes a 93% increase in cloud-infrastructure revenue. Growth in the company’s Oracle Cloud Infrastructure business reflects continuing strong demand for artificial-intelligence computing workloads, co-Chief Executive Officer Clay Magouyrk said on an analyst call. “AI infrastructure makes the existing cloud infrastructure market look small. Everything we see shows this market size is trillions of dollars per year,” Magouyrk said. “Combined with our previously outlined 30% to 40% margin profile, OCI should grow into an extremely large and extremely profitable business.” Still, Oracle is expecting its gross margins in the current fiscal year to decline because of the huge amount of financing needed to stand up its data centers.

After staying fairly well above the flat line till about an hour past noon, the Swiss market briefly fell into negative territory on Wednesday but recovered swiftly and held firm to eventually end the day's session on a strong note. The benchmark SMI, which dropped to 13,312.39 mid way through the session, ended with a gain of 107.02 points or 0.8% at 13,463.33, slightly off the day's high. VAT Group climbed about 3.5%. Nestle gained 2.57% and Sandoz Group climbed 2.2%. Swisscom, Roche and Swiss Re ended up by 1.85%, 1.6% and 1.56%, respectively. Zurich Insurance, Swiss Life Holding, Kuehne + Nagel, Helvetia Baloise Holding, Richemont, Lonza, Galderma Group, Partners Group and Novartis also closed higher. Julius Baer, Logitech International, ABB, Sonova and Straumann Holding shed 1%-1.6%. Sika also finished notably lower.

Europe
European stocks closed broadly lower on Wednesday amid lingering concerns about Middle East tensions and continued weakness in the technology sector. Also, investors digested U.S. inflation data that came in line with expectations and looked ahead to the European Central Bank's policy announcement on Thursday. The pan European Stoxx 600 edged down by 0.08%. The UK's FTSE 100 gained 0.27%, while Germany's DAX and France's CAC 40 closed lower by 0.97% and 0.51%, respectively. Switzerland's SMI closed 0.8% up. Among other markets in Europe, Austria, Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain and Sweden closed weak. Belgium, Denmark and Netherlands ended higher, while Ireland, Portugal and Türkiye closed flat. In the UK market, miners and banks were among the notable losers. Endeavour Mining shed 4.1%. Fresnillo, Anglo American Plc, Glencore and Antofagasta lost 0.8%-2.5%. HSBC Holdings, Standard Chartered, Natwest Group, Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group ended with sharp to moderate losses. Experian, Mondi, Weir Group, Relx, Pershing Square Holdings, Barratt Redrow, Berkeley Group Holdings, Scottish Mortgage, AstraZeneca and Intertek Group also closed weak. Shares of travel retailer WHSmith tanked 16.1% after the company cut its annual profit forecast for the second time this year. Tritax Big Box REIT climbed nearly 5%. Entain, Land Securities, Tesco, Unilever, Admiral Group, Vodafone Group, BT Group, Segro, Associated British Foods, IG Group, Metlen Energy & Metals, Coca-Cola HBC and Reckitt Benckiser posted strong gains. Imperial Brands, Games Workshop, JD Sports Fashion, BP, Croda International, British Land and British American Tobacco also ended sharply higher. In the German market, Deutsche Telekom closed up by about 3%. The company released a key software update for a popular router that fixed several bugs.

United States
Stocks showed a lack of direction early in the session on Wednesday but came under considerable selling pressure over the course of the trading day. The major averages all showed significant moves to the downside. The major averages ended the day just off their lows of the session. The Dow tumbled 953.33 points or 1.9 percent to 49,918.78, the Nasdaq plunged 509.32 points or 2 percent to 25,169.50 and the S&P 500 slumped 119.66 points or 1.6 percent to 7,266.99. On the inflation front, the Labor Department released a report showing consumer prices in the U.S. increased in line with economist estimates in the month of May. The Labor Department said its consumer price index rose by 0.5 percent in May after climbing by 0.6 percent in April. The price growth matched expectations. The annual rate of consumer price growth accelerated to 4.2 percent in May from 3.8 percent in April, which was also in line with estimates. Airline stocks moved sharply lower amid the surge by the price of crude oil, resulting in a 5.4 percent nosedive by the NYSE Arca Airline Index. Substantial weakness was also visible among gold stocks, which moved lower along with the price of the precious metal, dragging the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index down by 5 percent. Computer hardware, semiconductor and housing stocks also saw significant weakness on the day, while energy stocks bucked the downtrend.

Asia
On Thursday, indices across East Asian stock markets and in Sydney, Australia, are falling across the board. With the exception of Hong Kong, where the HSI is down 1.0 per cent, the losses are, however, significantly more limited compared with declines of up to 2 per cent on Wall Street. According to market participants, the ongoing sell-off in technology shares and the escalation of military attacks between the US and Iran are weighing on the markets.

Bonds
In the U.S. bond market, treasuries moved to the downside over the course of the session. As a reuslt, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, ticked up by 1.4 basis points to 4.542 percent.

Analysis
UBS raises Comet target to CHF 452 (405) – Buy
UBS raises Inficon target to CHF 190 (170) – Buy
UBS raises VAT target to CHF 745 (650) – Buy

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