Oracle Jumped 36% in a Day After Last September’s Earnings, but Traders Are Betting Against It Tonight
Oracle gave traders a 36% single-session surge exactly one year ago tonight, yet options activity heading into this earnings report tells a completely different story about where the smart money expects the stock to go.
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Oracle Enters Tonight’s Earnings Report Down 18% YTD With Traders Positioning Against Upside
Oracle (NYSE:ORCL | ORCL Price Prediction) has spent 2026 giving back the AI melt-up that defined it. Shares are down 17.83% year to date and 33.57% over the past year, trading around $158.62 against benchmark SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) and Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ) both notching fresh highs. Exactly one year ago, the stock surged 35.95% in a single session and closed near $328.33. It has since lost roughly half its value.
The headwind is sentiment-driven, while fundamentals remain intact. Into tonight’s report, the busiest options trade is selling calls at the 150 strike in October, November, and December, and implied volatility sits at 73, among the top five in the S&P 500. However, the underlying business tells a different story. With earnings tonight, September 10, 2026, the setup is in place for Oracle to reset the narrative.
Oracle’s $638 Billion Backlog Should Drive a Beat
Management guided Q1 FY2027 revenue growth to 27% to 29% in U.S. dollars, cloud revenue growth to 58% to 64%, and non-GAAP EPS to $1.72 to $1.76, representing 17% to 20% growth. Consensus sits inside that band at $1.7391 EPS on $19.13 billion in revenue from 34 analysts.
The visibility is unusual. Remaining performance obligations exited Q4 at $638 billion, up 363% year over year, with $75 billion tied to prepaid or customer-supplied GPU arrangements. Cloud infrastructure grew 93% last quarter, multi-cloud database revenue expanded 404%, and $67 billion in AI infrastructure contracts were signed in a single quarter. Global GPU utilization stands at 97.5%.
Full-year FY2027 revenue is guided to $90 billion with non-GAAP EPS of $8.05, growth rates that dwarf the S&P 500’s mid-single-digit earnings trajectory. Polymarket assigns a 0.79 probability that Oracle beats consensus tonight. The backlog is the catalyst; the print is the trigger. Oracle is the software face of the buildout, but the power, cooling, and networking suppliers riding the same wave rarely make the headlines (we profiled seven of them in a free report you can grab here).
Valuation Reset Creates an Asymmetric Setup
Oracle trades at roughly 28x trailing earnings and near 20x the $8.05 FY2027 EPS guide. That is a premium to the market, justified by an 18% EPS growth trajectory and a cloud franchise compounding at nearly triple digits. Analyst positioning remains constructive: 36 Buy ratings, 7 Hold, and 1 Sell, with a consensus 12-month target of $241.43, implying meaningful upside from $158.62.
The reaction risk cuts both ways. Oracle sold off after two of its past three reports, including a 10.83% day-of drop following a 32.43% Q2 beat. Yet shares have already rallied 8.83% in the past week into the report. The stock is beaten down, the anniversary catalyst returns tonight, and the RPO-backed upside case is intact.
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Joel South covers large-cap stocks, dividend investing, and major market trends, with a focus on earnings analysis, valuation, and turning complex data into actionable insights for investors.
He brings more than 15 years of experience as an investor and financial journalist, including 12 years at The Motley Fool, where he served as an investment analyst, Bureau Chief, and later led the Fool.com investing news desk. He has also co-hosted an investing podcast and appeared across TV and radio discussing market trends.
