Options Signal 11% Swing as Oracle Reports Earnings

Oracle will report quarterly results after the closing bell Thursday. Options pricing ahead of the report implies the stock could move about 11% by the end of the week, based on Wednesday’s close, to roughly $179 on the upside or below $145 on the downside.

Options markets show heavier call activity and higher premiums on some calls than on similarly distant puts, reflecting bets on a large reaction to earnings in either direction. In the Sept. 11 weekly options as of Sept. 9, $144 strike puts traded near $2.34 while $180 calls traded near $3.90, with those strikes roughly equidistant from the stock price.

Wall Street consensus expects revenue of about $19.1 billion, up nearly 28% from a year earlier, and earnings of about $1.74 a share versus $1.47 a year earlier. Investors will also focus on Oracle’s remaining performance obligations, or backlog, which Visible Alpha estimates at nearly $640 billion, about 40% growth year over year. The backlog signals strong demand for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure but shows revenue concentrated among a small number of large AI customers.

Analysts are divided on near-term outlook. Bank of America analyst Tal Liani expects infrastructure-as-a-service revenue to rise 25% sequentially and 116% year over year, and wrote that customer prepayments and faster deployment of data-center capacity could help address financing concerns. Morgan Stanley’s Sanjit Singh described Oracle as a “good setup” heading into earnings and projects cloud revenue growth near 63% from a year earlier, while Morgan Stanley maintains a neutral rating and notes several quarters of strong results may be needed to restore investor confidence on the balance sheet and spending plans.

Mizuho maintains an Outperform rating with a $320 price target and expects Oracle to beat consensus, driven by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure strength. The average analyst price target compiled by Visible Alpha is $239; Bank of America’s target is $240. Nine of 11 analysts tracked by Visible Alpha rate the stock a buy, with one neutral and one sell.

Oracle shares have been volatile this year. The stock is down more than 17% in 2026 and remains over 50% below its September 2025 record high after large capital spending commitments for Project Jupiter and other data centers. The shares rose about 35% after the September 2025 earnings beat and have gained roughly 15% over the past week.

The timing of Oracle’s report adds a market variable: the U.S. consumer price index is scheduled for release the next morning. Several firms say another earnings beat could improve visibility into free cash flow and ease financing concerns ahead of Oracle’s Oct. 28 Investor Day. Citi analysts have called the stock an opportunity after a large drawdown, and investors will be watching whether expanding infrastructure commitments translate into faster revenue growth and higher free cash flow.