Oracle Options Traders Eye $175 Strike Before Earnings — SkimNews
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- Oracle (ORCL) is set to report fiscal first-quarter earnings Thursday after the market close, with shares having closed Tuesday at $162.52, up 2.4%
- Options traders are positioning for a large post-earnings move, with call purchasing heavily concentrated at the $175 strike — nearly an 8% premium to Tuesday's close
- Oracle's cloud infrastructure revenue surged 93% to $5.8 billion last quarter, driven by the AI expenditure boom
- Oracle closed fiscal 2026 with $638 billion in remaining performance obligations, representing a massive backlog of contracted business
- Oracle generated $32 billion in operating cash flow in fiscal 2026, but free cash flow plunged to negative $23.7 billion as the company spent heavily on AI data centers
- Thursday's report goes beyond whether Oracle beats quarterly projections — the key investor question is whether the AI cloud income explosion can justify the enormous capital spending behind it
Why it matters: Oracle's $32 billion in fiscal 2026 operating cash flow was more than wiped out by negative $23.7 billion in free cash flow, a direct consequence of the AI data center buildout. With cloud revenue already up 93% to $5.8 billion and a $638 billion backlog locked in, Thursday's report will test whether the top-line explosion is enough to validate the capital intensity — options traders are betting the answer moves the stock 8% either way.
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