Oracle shares drop 12% in Europe after forecasts miss Wall St targets

Dec 11 (Reuters) - Shares in Oracle ORCL.N opened almost 12% lower in Frankfurt, tracking U.S. afterhour losses after the company forecast sales and profit that missed analyst estimates.

Oracle said spending would rise by $15 billion compared with earlier estimates - a sign that big capital outlays to chase AI cloud-computing customers is not turning into profit as fast as Wall Street had expected.

"Results were mixed with backlog of $523B slightly ahead... Despite management's commitment to its IG (investment-grade) debt rating, AI debt funding concerns were unresolved," wrote Jefferies in a note, sticking to its buy rating.