Oracle will report earnings after the close today
Cloud concern Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) will report fiscal first-quarter earnings after the close today. Oracle stock is down 1.2% in premarket trading, after Citigroup issued a pre-earnings price-target lift to $138 from $121.
Digging into earnings history, Oracle stock closed has a mixed next-day response. In fact, ORCL fell following its September, December, and March reports, but staged a small rally after its June earnings call. Shares averaged a post-earnings swing of 4.5% over the past two years, regardless of direction. However, the options market is pricing in a slightly larger-than-usual 5.9% move this time around.
Should these premarket gains hold, Oracle stock will open just below the $128 level, giving it a chance to surpass its June 15, all-time high of $127.54. The equity fell back below its 50-day moving average during the broader market's August pullback, but gapped higher on the charts towards the end of the month, winning nine of its last 10 sessions. Year over year, ORCL is nearly 70% higher.
Coming into today, analysts are split on their sentiment. While 11 consider the security a "strong buy," the remaining 12 in coverage recommend a tepid "hold." At the same time, Oracle stock's average 12-month price target of $127.92 is a razor-then 0.05% premium to Friday's close.
In the options pits, sentiment has also been leaning quite bullish. Data from the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) currently shows the stock with a 50-day call/put volume ratio of 2.50. This lofty ratio, sitting in the 83rd percentile of annual readings, means that more than double the amounts of calls have been purchased over puts during the past two weeks of trading.