Oracle (ORCL - Analyst Report), the leading tech indicator running ahead of main earnings season, reported fiscal Q1 2016 earnings after the bell on Wednesday. And, as the software and cloud-based giant did in the previous quarter, missed expectations on the top line while it eked out a beat on the bottom. Earnings of 49 cents per share (accounting for stock-based compensation and other before non-recurring items) on revenues of $8.45 billion in the quarter compare to the Zacks Consensuses of 48 cents and $8.57 billion, respectively.

In Oracle's long process to convert itself to a cloud-based operation, the company has experienced growing pains, especially as far as its shareholders are concerned. Oracle shares are down 14 percent in just the past 3 months, not including the slight dip in the after-market following the earnings announcement. And while Software + Cloud growth in the quarter reached 34 percent, expectations were for about 39.5 percent. Oracle has now given away most of its slight gains from regular Wednesday trading today.

Guidance was met for Oracle's growth projections: 7 percent, versus 6-8 percent anticipated by the company. Oracle generally does not provide guidance until its conference call, which is coming up at the top of the hour. Analysts will be listening closely for clues that its cloud-based growth has finally gained some decent traction.

Analysts covering Oracle have been sending quarterly and yearly estimates revised downward slightly but consistently. The last 4 reads for fiscal 2016 earnings have all dipped a penny each time. We shall see if further revisions are in the works going into the company's very important Q2, which is where the company tends to focus its concentration.

It will be a few weeks before we also get earnings reports from tech stalwarts like Apple (AAPL - Analyst Report), Cisco (CSCO - Analyst Report) and IBM (IBM - Analyst Report), and as such, it would be a stretch to give a negative bias to the tech space at this early date; Oracle's industry ranks in the top 31 percent overall, so earnings numbers for many of its competitors ought to be better -- especially if they are further along with their cloud-based solutions than Oracle is.

Oracle currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Its style scores are Growth - D, Value - B and Momentum - F, all of which are subject to change.