Oracle rose 5.7% on September 3, but the reason had almost nothing to do with its business. The trigger was Fed Governor Waller hinting that he leans toward keeping rates unchanged this month. Why this is especially useful for Oracle: it has taken on a lot of debt to expand AI data centers, and every easing in financing costs flows directly to its profit and loss statement. This gain was also part of a broader rally across the software sector. The setup was also favorable because the stock had fallen about 36% over the past 12 months. Jefferies said that “the worst-case scenario may already be priced in,” citing that its cloud infrastructure business is still growing at 93% on a constant-currency basis, while market sentiment has already become extremely pessimistic. My view: rebounds of this kind, where the stock jumps as soon as rates ease, are essentially handing the company’s valuation over to Treasury yields rather than to its ability to deliver cloud orders. The next earnings report will be the real test: now that the money has been spent, can revenue and cash flow keep up? $ORCLB