Stocks / ORCL
What If You Had Invested in Oracle 10 Years Ago?
Oracle Corporation (ORCL) with real monthly prices, dividends reinvested, through November 2026.
ORCL $116.10 ▲ +0.82% last close, Nov 06, 2026
If you had invested $1,000 in ORCL in November 2016, today it would be worth
$3,353
Same $1,000 in the S&P 500 (SPY): $3,907
If you had put $500 a month into ORCL since November 2016, your $60,500 would be worth today
$104,971
Same plan in the S&P 500 (SPY): $129,289
More options in the What If calculator.
ORCL live price chart
ORCL returns by period
| Period | Total return | Per year | $1,000 became | SPY per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | -41.7% | -41.7% | $583 | +8.8% |
| 3 years | +3.5% | +1.2% | $1,035 | +18.7% |
| 5 years | +36.9% | +6.5% | $1,369 | +11.5% |
| 10 years | +235.3% | +12.9% | $3,353 | +14.6% |
| 20 years | +670.4% | +10.7% | $7,704 | +10.6% |
| Since 1986 | +228894.1% | +21.0% | $2,289,941 | — |
ORCL year by year
Best full year: 1999 (+289.8%). Worst: 1990 (-66.3%).
| Year | ORCL | SPY | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (so far) | -39.6% | +8.7% | |
| 2025 | +18.1% | +17.7% | |
| 2024 | +60.0% | +24.9% | Investors began to see Oracle as an AI infrastructure company, and the stock rose about 60%. |
| 2023 | +30.9% | +26.2% | |
| 2022 | -4.6% | -18.2% | |
| 2021 | +36.9% | +28.7% | |
| 2020 | +24.3% | +18.3% | |
| 2019 | +19.3% | +31.2% | |
| 2018 | -3.0% | -4.6% | |
| 2017 | +24.9% | +21.7% | |
| 2016 | +6.9% | +12.0% | |
| 2015 | -17.6% | +1.2% | |
| 2014 | +19.0% | +13.5% | |
| 2013 | +15.7% | +32.3% | |
| 2012 | +31.7% | +16.0% | |
| 2011 | -17.5% | +1.9% | |
| 2010 | +28.6% | +15.1% | |
| 2009 | +39.4% | +26.4% | |
| 2008 | -21.5% | -36.8% | |
| 2007 | +31.7% | +5.1% | |
| 2001 | -52.5% | -11.8% | The dot-com bust hit Oracle's customers and the stock lost about half. |
| 1999 | +289.8% | +20.4% | Internet companies needed databases, and Oracle's stock nearly quadrupled in the dot-com boom. |
| 1990 | -66.3% | — | Oracle restated its results after overly aggressive sales accounting and posted its first loss. The stock lost about two thirds. |
ORCL: all at once or every month?
Take $12,000: all of it on day one, or $1,000 a month for a year. Across every starting month since 1986 (477 of them), the lump sum was ahead after 12 months in 343 (72%). Oracle's long record includes two very different bad periods, the 1990 accounting scare and the 2000 to 2002 crash. Those, plus shorter slumps such as 2008, 2011 and 2025, are where monthly investing paid off. The best case for monthly investing was a start in June 1990, when it finished the year 162% ahead.
Worst drop
ORCL's worst fall in this history was -82.7%, a near wipe-out, from August 2000 to September 2002. Getting back to the old high took until December 2014: 147 months from the bottom and 14.3 years from the peak. $1,000 invested at that peak shrank to about $173 at the low.
Oracle peaked in the dot-com boom, when internet companies were scrambling to buy its databases. When that spending stopped, the stock lost more than 80% and needed until late 2014 to regain its old high, even with dividends added back.
Oracle dividends
ORCL paid $2.00 per share over the last 12 months, in January, April, July and October. At $116.10 that is 1.72%, a moderate yield. From 2020 to 2025 the yearly payout grew +14.6% a year, well ahead of inflation. The yearly total did not fall once in the last ten years. Amounts are adjusted for splits.
| Year | Dividends / share | Change | Yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $1.90 | +18.7% | 0.97% |
| 2024 | $1.60 | +5.3% | 0.96% |
| 2023 | $1.52 | +18.8% | 1.44% |
| 2022 | $1.28 | +6.7% | 1.57% |
| 2021 | $1.20 | +25.0% | 1.38% |
| 2020 | $0.96 | +5.5% | 1.48% |
| 2019 | $0.91 | +19.7% | 1.72% |
| 2018 | $0.76 | +5.6% | 1.68% |
| 2017 | $0.72 | +20.0% | 1.52% |
| 2016 | $0.60 | +5.3% | 1.56% |
Yield = each year’s dividends divided by the price at the end of the year.
ORCL dividend history: last 12 payments
| Ex-dividend date | Amount | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 09, 2026 | $0.5000 | +0.0% |
| Jul 10, 2026 | $0.5000 | +0.0% |
| Apr 09, 2026 | $0.5000 | +0.0% |
| Jan 09, 2026 | $0.5000 | +0.0% |
| Oct 09, 2025 | $0.5000 | +0.0% |
| Jul 10, 2025 | $0.5000 | +0.0% |
| Apr 10, 2025 | $0.5000 | +25.0% |
| Jan 10, 2025 | $0.4000 | +0.0% |
| Oct 10, 2024 | $0.4000 | +0.0% |
| Jul 11, 2024 | $0.4000 | +0.0% |
| Apr 09, 2024 | $0.4000 | +0.0% |
| Jan 10, 2024 | $0.4000 | — |
Stock splits
- March 1987: 2-for-1
- December 1987: 2-for-1
- July 1989: 2-for-1
- November 1993: 2-for-1
- February 1995: 3-for-2
- April 1996: 3-for-2
- August 1997: 3-for-2
- March 1999: 3-for-2
- January 2000: 2-for-1
- October 2000: 2-for-1
One share bought before 1987 is 324 shares today.
About Oracle
| Company | Oracle Corporation |
| Listed | March 1986 (Nasdaq; NYSE since 2013) |
| Sector | Technology (software and cloud) |
| Dividend | Paid since 2009 |
Oracle built its business on database software, the systems big companies use to store and run their most important data. Larry Ellison co-founded it in 1977 and is still its chairman and largest shareholder.
For years Oracle looked like an old software company that had been slow to move to the cloud. That changed with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, which signed huge contracts to supply computing power for AI. In September 2025 Oracle said its booked future revenue had jumped to more than $450 billion, and the stock rose about 36% in a single day.
Those contracts also mean enormous spending on data centers, much of it borrowed. Worries about that debt, and about how much rides on a few customers, OpenAI above all, pulled the stock far back from its 2025 high.
From software to data centers
Oracle used to need little cash to grow: it wrote software once and sold licenses and support many times over. Building AI data centers is the opposite, a business of heavy upfront spending on chips, buildings and power. That shift is why investors now watch Oracle's debt and cash flow as closely as its sales.
Larry Ellison's stake
Larry Ellison owns roughly 40% of Oracle, so its share price drives his fortune and at times has made him one of the richest people in the world. Oracle has also bought back huge amounts of its own stock over the years, shrinking the share count and lifting his percentage.
Questions about ORCL
Did ORCL beat the S&P 500?
Almost exactly tied. Over the last 20 years the gap was 0.1 percentage points a year: +10.7% a year for ORCL against +10.6% for SPY, dividends reinvested. It also fell harder at its worst (-82.7% against -50.8% for SPY over the same history).
Does Oracle pay a dividend?
Yes. Oracle started a quarterly dividend in 2009 and has raised it over time. The yield is small next to the stock's swings, so most of Oracle's return has come from the share price.