I Got Called Away From Oracle At $135. Then I Bought It Back
Mathematical Money | September 6, 2026
Oracle reports Q1 on Thursday.
It's an odd setup going in. The stock closed Friday at $153.75, which sounds healthy until you notice it traded as high as $345.72 within the last year. It's 54% off that. And yet Barclays, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan all raised their price targets into this print — Barclays went to $281 from $221, and the average across the top analysts is sitting around $261.
So the sell-side thinks it's worth roughly 70% more than it trades, the chart says it's been cut in half, and the print lands Thursday after the close. Consensus is looking for about $19.1 billion of revenue and $1.30 of GAAP EPS. Take your pick which of those you believe.
I made my choice last week. Bought three October 2027 $120 calls.
How I got here
In late August I had 300 Oracle shares at a $135 cost basis, with a covered call written against them at that same $135 strike. Oracle ran through it and I got called away — the shares went at $135 while the stock was above $150.
That's the wheel doing what it does. You sell the right to buy your shares at a price, someone takes it, and you don't get to be annoyed about it afterwards.
But I still wanted Oracle exposure. So the question was how to get back in.
Calls instead of shares
Buying 300 shares back would cost me roughly $46,000 at Friday's price.
Instead I bought three October 2027 $120 calls, at $48.70, $48.80 and $51.30. Total: $14,880.
Those three contracts control the same 300 shares for the next thirteen months. So I've got the same exposure for about a third of the capital, and the other $31,000 stays in the account doing other work — mostly backing the puts I sell elsewhere.
That's the case for it. Here's the cost, because it isn't free.
With Oracle at $153.75 and the strike at $120, the intrinsic value in those three calls is about $10,125. I paid $14,880. The extra $4,755 is time value — what the market charged me for thirteen months of optionality.
If Oracle goes sideways for a year, shares would still be sitting there and my calls will have bled most of that $4,755 away. A share has no expiry date. A call does, and you pay for the privilege of using less money.
Anyone telling you LEAPS are just cheaper shares is skipping that paragraph.
Going in without waiting
I'm walking into Thursday's print on a position I opened a week earlier, which I'm aware is not the most patient thing I've ever done.
Two ways it goes.
If the quarter is decent and the cloud numbers hold up, a stock 54% off its highs with analysts at $261 has a lot of room to move, and deep in-the-money 2027 calls capture almost all of that — they behave close to shares on the way up.
If it disappoints, I lose faster than shareholders do. Not because the calls are riskier per dollar of exposure, but because I've got thirteen months and a strike price, and a bad quarter eats into both. The maximum I can lose is the $14,880, which is a real number and one I'd rather not hand over.
I'm not going to pretend I know which. Oracle's last year has embarrassed a lot of people who were sure.
What I'd do differently
Honestly? I'd probably have waited until after the print.
Buying long-dated calls a few sessions before earnings means paying for elevated implied volatility, and that premium tends to leak out the moment the news is public regardless of which way the stock goes. I bought it anyway because I'd decided I wanted the position and I don't much enjoy waiting.
That's not a process. That's impatience with a rationalisation stapled to it, and I'd rather write it down here than pretend it was a plan.
The rest of it
I've published the full week on my newsletter — every trade, plus the four long-dated calls I sold in META and COIN this week after admitting last month that I'd bought too many of them. Also a correction, because my own risk tooling produced a wrong number and I nearly published it.
Free and weekly, at mathematicalmoney.substack.com.
Back here as usual. Anyone holding Oracle into Thursday, or has this one burned enough people that you're waiting to see the print first? Genuinely curious. Drop it in the comments.
Stop guessing. Start calculating.
Live to fight another day. 🤙
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