Nursing Home Pension Fund, Local 144 v. Oracle Corp.

Oracle Corporation is the second-largest producer of software in the world. In the third quarter of its 2001 fiscal year, Oracle missed its forecasted earnings per share *383 by two cents. Its stock price dropped. A legion of analysts blamed the miss on a late-quarter reaction by several key customers to the unfolding U.S. economic downturn that would become commonly known as the burst of the dot-com bubble. Plaintiffs, several intra-quarter purchasers of Oracle common-stock, brought this securities litigation against Oracle and three of its officers alleging the miss was actually caused by an elaborate scheme to defraud the public about the quality of Oracle products and the revenue gained therefrom. Because Plaintiffs have not developed evidence sufficient to permit a reasonable jury to conclude that their losses were caused by the market’s reaction to Defendants’ alleged fraud, as opposed to Oracle’s poor financial health generally, we affirm the district court’s order granting summary judgment in favor of Oracle.

I

Plaintiffs allege that: (1) Defendants violated Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”), 15 U.S.C. § 78j(b), and Securities…