Covered calls on ORCL
Oracle Corporation was trading at $143.76 when this page was last refreshed on September 16, 2026. 22 out-of-the-money ORCL calls sat in the 0.15 to 0.25 delta band that covered call writers work in, paying $100 to $243 a contract. 22 of them came back scored, and the app would have ranked those and shown you the top few.
Numbers on this page come from a snapshot taken on September 16, 2026. They are not live quotes and are not refreshed when you load the page.
| Expiry | Strike | Bid / ask | Premium | Annualized | Keep odds | Break-even | OI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 25 9d | $157.50 | $0.95 / $1.04 | $100 | 28.1% | 81% | $158.50 | 1,992 |
| October 2 16d | $162.50 | $1.19 / $1.32 | $126 | 19.9% | 82% | $163.76 | 351 |
| October 9 23d | $165.00 | $1.55 / $1.71 | $163 | 18.0% | 81% | $166.63 | 739 |
| October 16 30d | $165.00 | $2.20 / $2.28 | $224 | 19.0% | 78% | $167.24 | 14,009 |
| October 23 37d | $170.00 | $2.02 / $2.27 | $215 | 14.7% | 80% | $172.15 | 3,135 |
| October 30 44d | $175.00 | $2.30 / $2.56 | $243 | 14.0% | 81% | $177.43 | 90 |
One row per expiration: the out-of-the-money strike closest to the middle of the delta band, which is the strike you would actually be looking at on that expiry. Break-even on a covered call is your own cost basis minus the premium, not the strike minus the premium, so the column above is the strike-side break-even and yours depends on what you paid for the shares.
What the premium is priced off
At-the-money implied vol is 51%. That is the kind of number that draws premium sellers in and then runs them over. A 60% IV name can gap 20% on a Tuesday, and the premium that looked like free money on Monday covers about a fifth of that.
Can you actually get filled
Median bid-ask spread is 10.4% of the mid, widening to 11.7% on the worst strike here. Workable, but do not send a market order. Open interest is deep, 1,992 contracts at the median strike, so getting out early is not a problem.
Dates that matter in this window
The earnings calendar was checked and came back clean for the 45-day window. Worth confirming yourself before you write anything: calendars move, and an unconfirmed date is not the same as no date. An ex-dividend date also falls inside the window, and that matters more for a covered call than most people expect. A call holder sitting on an in-the-money contract can exercise early to capture the dividend, which takes your shares before expiry and before you collected the last of the time value.
What the annualized column hides
The best annualized number in this ladder is 28.1%, on the $157.50 strike expiring September 25. It is $100 of actual cash. It annualizes well because it is a 9-day contract, and annualizing a two-week trade assumes you find twenty-six more like it, at the same premium, with the same risk. You will not.
If it gets called away
Take the $165.00 strike expiring October 16. You collect $224 up front. If ORCL finishes above $165.00 your 100 shares are sold there, and the 14.8% move from $143.76 up to the strike is yours as well. Everything above it is not. The model puts the odds of keeping the premium at about 78%, so assignment on this one is a real possibility rather than a footnote.
The number nobody checks is the cost basis. If you paid more than $165.00 for these shares, that strike locks in a loss on the stock, and $224 of premium does not repair it. A covered call is only a good trade at a strike you would genuinely accept selling at.
Questions people actually ask
What is a good strike for a covered call on ORCL?
The strikes above are the ones in the 0.15 to 0.25 delta band, which is where premium sellers targeting roughly an 80% chance of keeping the premium tend to sit. On the September 16, 2026 snapshot that meant $157.50 out to $175.00, depending on how far out you go. The right one for you is the lowest strike you would still be happy selling your shares at.
How much can you make selling covered calls on ORCL?
The best annualized figure in the ladder above was 28.1%, and the cash it represents was $100 for one contract. Annualized numbers assume you repeat the trade all year at the same premium, which nobody does. Treat them as a way to compare expiries, not as a forecast.
Does OptionsKing recommend selling calls on ORCL?
No. This page is a dated snapshot of the chain, not a recommendation, and the app has no opinion to offer beyond an ordering. It scores every in-band strike and shows you the best few by rank, with no minimum score anywhere, so at the last refresh 22 of the 22 in-band strikes were scored and the top few would have reached you whatever those scores were. See how the scoring works and the full disclaimer.
None of these is a pick. This is a dated snapshot of the ORCL chain from September 16, 2026, and an option chain from last week is history, not a quote.