Deep ITM LEAPS: How I used GOOGL $300c to replicate 3,000 shares and avoid the IV crush

Good morning everyone. With the market opening and GOOGL gapping up heavily on their Q1 print, I wanted to break down the mechanics of my current Alphabet position and my rationale for holding through the earnings catalyst rather than selling the premium.

The Position Structure:

• Contracts: 30x GOOGL $300 Calls

• Expiration: September 18, 2026

• Entry Date: July 24, 2025

• Current Market Underlying: ~$377.00

The Greeks & Capital Efficiency:

I entered these LEAPS last summer to capture the AI infrastructure scale-up without tying up the massive capital required to buy 3,000 outright shares. With the underlying now trading near $378, these contracts are roughly $78 deep in the money.

The Delta on these is effectively approaching 1.0. Because almost the entire premium is intrinsic value (~$234,000 across the board), the extrinsic value is negligible. This allowed me to comfortably hold through yesterday's earnings print without fearing the typical post-earnings IV crush that destroys OTM option buyers.

Trade Management at the Open:

I originally had a GTC limit order set at $385.00 to sell a 10-contract tranche at the open to de-risk. However, after reviewing the exact metrics of the print (63% Cloud revenue growth, 33% Cloud operating margins, and the $40B Anthropic TPU mandate), I canceled the order.

My read on the tape is that the $420 Billion in market cap required to push GOOGL to a $5 Trillion valuation cannot be bought in a single session. I am expecting institutional VWAP algorithms to aggressively accumulate shares over the next 5 to 10 trading days to re-weight their portfolios for the Anthropic news. I am going to let that underlying institutional bid carry this synthetic equity position through the $400 psychological resistance and toward my $410+ target.

Discussion:

For those of you who frequently trade deep ITM LEAPS as stock replacements, at what point do you typically look to roll your strikes up to extract cash, versus holding the deep ITM delta all the way to your fundamental price target?