Oracle's stock sinks after J.P. Morgan downgrades on concerns over CIO spending contraction

Shares of Oracle Corp. sank 2.3% in premarket trade Thursday, after the enterprise software company was downgraded at J.P. Morgan, which cited signs that spending on the company's products would decline. Analyst Mark Murphy cut his rating to neutral, after being at overweight since March 2017, and trimmed his stock price target to $53, after being at $55 for the past year. "In our survey of 154 CIOs, [Oracle] received the largest number of indications for planned spending contraction this year (32), materially more than the second-worst company, which was [International Business Machines Corp.] with 25 indications of spending contraction," Murphy wrote in a note to clients. He said the results of the survey made him "uncomfortable" because they have been "highly predictive" over the years. IBM's stock was still inactive premarket. Over the past three months, Oracle shares have lost 7.7%, while the SPDR Technology Select Sector ETF has gained 2.7% and the S&P 500 has advanced 1%.