REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) _ Oracle Corp. (ORCL) on Thursday reported fiscal third-quarter earnings of $2.57 billion.

The Redwood City, California-based company said it had profit of 79 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were 97 cents per share.

The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 96 cents per share.

The software maker posted revenue of $9.8 billion in the period, also exceeding Street forecasts. Nine analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $9.77 billion.

Oracle shares have declined 23% since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has declined 23%. In the final minutes of trading on Thursday, shares hit $40.76, a drop of 23% in the last 12 months.

This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on ORCL at https://www.zacks.com/ap/ORCL

Automated Insights, source Associated Press News