As we noted in the weekly issue, over the past three months, one of the top growth leaders among the industries in the S&P 500 index has been the software industry (+4.4%).
The largest (by market capitalization) companies in this industry that have increased in price after the reporting period: Microsoft ($2.5T), one of the world’s largest software developers, and Oracle ($295.9B), a provider of database management software, CRM systems, and other cloud services.
Using the most recent quarterly reporting data, we analyzed each company’s profitability, strength, and efficiency using the methodology of Stanford University professor Joseph Piotroski.
As you can see, from a fundamental perspective, both companies are currently showing quite strong results. Both Microsoft and Oracle look attractive for medium- and long-term investments, but Microsoft has slightly better financial performance.
In addition, over the last three months, Microsoft’s stock has increased by +6.8%, while Oracle’s have fallen by -6.9% (the S&P500 index has decreased by -3.5%). We can therefore see that Microsoft’s share price has outperformed the index and has a good level of stress resistance.
So the winner of today’s battle is Microsoft (MSFT). The company’s business looks healthier and its shares are showing better strength.
