Oracle’s electrifying quarter

Friday, September 12, 2025

HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Fannie and Freddie could soon be open to investors. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says the plan is to take the government-owned housing giants public, potentially in the “largest IPO in history.”

AI chatbots are talking to kids. The government is concerned. As AI finds itself more embedded in the fabric of everyday life, the FTC has launched an inquiry into the seven leading chatbot makers.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s stock pops on takeover talk. Shares surged more than 30% Thursday afternoon following reports that Paramount is preparing a takeover bid for its broadcast rival.

HBO Max is about to cost you more. CEO David Zaslav said the product (which he said will be in 150 million homes by next year) is “way underpriced,” and he’s planning to do something about that.

A MESSAGE FROM PACASO

YOU WON'T FIND THIS STOCK ON CNBC. THAT'S BY DESIGN.

But the people who know? They’re getting in. In fact, 10k+ have already invested. That includes some of the earliest backers for companies like Uber and eBay. And you can join them. But not for long.

INVEST BEFORE 9/18

Paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Reserving a ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the NASDAQ is subject to approvals.

WATT NOW, ORACLE?

For decades, Oracle sold software with Larry Ellison–size swagger. This week, it sold something less glamorous but far more valuable: electricity. On its latest earnings call, the company revealed a contract backlog of $45 billion — a number that belongs in a government budget, not a Silicon Valley deck. Hours later, reports said OpenAI had signed on for a five-year, $300 billion deal starting in 2027. Oracle isn’t pitching clever apps anymore; it’s proposing an AI grid, and investors rewarded the shift with the stock’s biggest one-day jump since 1992.

That redefines what progress looks like. Forget daily active users — the new metric is megawatts. Success means substations energized on schedule, copper wired without delay, and enough power behind the meter to keep the racks humming. It’s an industrial plan disguised as a tech story, with Oracle suddenly recast as landlord and line-builder. Wall Street loves the apparent math: contracts convert into revenue the minute a hall powers up, producing utility-style cash flows with the predictability that software chiefs can only dream about.

The risks are no less plain. Steel and transformers have long lead times, transmission upgrades can take years, and local fights over land and noise could turn “build fast” into “not in my backyard.” Utilities endure that grind under regulatory protection. Oracle is betting it can endure under market pressure, all while juggling tens of billions in new capex and debt. The payoff is clear: become the first AI utility, selling compute by the megawatt and stability by the quarter. But the catch is that Oracle will have to prove itself in concrete and copper, not PowerPoint. Quartz’s Shannon Carrol has more on Oracle’s megawatt makeover.

THE PRICE IS... WRONG

The White House says prices are falling. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says: um, not so much. August’s consumer-price index jumped 0.4% from July, the fastest monthly pace since winter. That puts inflation at 2.9% year over year — the hottest reading since January — with core CPI still running north of 3%. In plain, boring English, that means groceries, gas, and rent got more expensive, even if President Donald Trump insists “we have no inflation.”

For the Federal Reserve, the timing couldn’t be trickier. The central bank meets next week, armed with fresh numbers that look stickier than the White House talking points. Markets had been hoping for a “bumper” cut, but the odds are settling around 25 basis points, instead. That leaves Chair Jerome Powell squeezed between a consumer reality of rising shelter and food prices and a president who wants faster, deeper cuts ahead of 2026. The central bank has never looked so much like the third party in an ugly divorce.

The politics look just as messy as the math. Polls show that voters consistently rank inflation as their top economic concern, and Trump’s approval on the issue has dipped below 30%. His insistence that “prices are down on just about everything” is colliding with official reports that show steady pressure — and with voters who don’t need a chart to know the cost of living isn’t easing. For the Fed, the stakes are high; for the White House, they’re existential. Quartz’s Catherine Baab has more on how groceries became the president’s worst pollster.

A MESSAGE FROM PACASO

YOU WON'T FIND THIS STOCK ON CNBC. THAT'S BY DESIGN.

INVEST BEFORE 9/18

HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW﻿

YOU WON'T FIND THIS STOCK ON CNBC. THAT'S BY DESIGN.

WATT NOW, ORACLE?

THE PRICE IS... WRONG

YOU WON'T FIND THIS STOCK ON CNBC. THAT'S BY DESIGN.

MORE FROM QUARTZ

HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW