CME Cash-Secured Put Strategy
CME (CME Group Inc.), in the Financial Services sector, (Financial - Data & Stock Exchanges industry), listed on NASDAQ.
CME Group Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates contract markets for the trading of futures and options on futures contracts worldwide. It offers futures and options products based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, agricultural commodities, energy, and metals, as well as fixed income products. The company also provides clearing house services, including clearing, settling, and guaranteeing futures and options contracts, and cleared swaps products traded through its exchanges; and trade processing and risk mitigation services. In addition, the company offers a range of market data services, including real-time and historical data services. It serves professional traders, financial institutions, institutional and individual investors, corporations, manufacturers, producers, governments, and central banks. The company was formerly known as Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. and changed its name to CME Group Inc. in July 2007.
CME (CME Group Inc.) trades in the Financial Services sector, specifically Financial - Data & Stock Exchanges, with a market capitalization of approximately $107.67B, a trailing P/E of 25.17, a beta of 0.26 versus the broader market, a 52-week range of 257.17-329.16, average daily share volume of 2.3M, a public-listing history dating back to 2002, approximately 4K full-time employees. These structural characteristics shape how CME stock options price implied volatility around earnings windows, capital events, and macro-driven sector rotations.
A beta of 0.26 indicates CME has historically moved less than the broader market, dampening realized volatility and producing tighter expected-move bands per unit of dollar exposure. CME pays a dividend, which adjusts put-call parity and shifts the ex-dividend pricing across the listed chain.
What is a cash-secured put on CME?
A cash-secured put sells an out-of-the-money put while holding cash equal to the strike-times-100 obligation, keeping the premium when the underlying stays above the strike.
Current CME snapshot
As of May 15, 2026, spot at $299.07, ATM IV 23.94%, IV rank 59.87%, expected move 6.86%. The cash-secured put on CME below is built from the same end-of-day chain, with strikes snapped to listed contracts and premiums pulled from the bid/ask midpoint at a 28-day expiry.
Why this cash-secured put structure on CME specifically: CME IV at 23.94% is mid-range versus its 1-year history, so the credit collected on a CME cash-secured put sits in line with its long-run distribution, with a market-implied 1-standard-deviation move of approximately 6.86% (roughly $20.53 on the underlying). The 28-day window matched to the front-month expiry keeps theta exposure bounded while still capturing the post-snapshot move; longer-dated CME expiries trade a higher absolute premium for lower per-day decay. Position sizing on CME should anchor to the underlying notional of $299.07 per share and to the trader's directional view on CME stock.
CME cash-secured put setup
The CME cash-secured put below is built from the end-of-day chain, with each option leg priced at the bid/ask midpoint of its listed strike. With CME near $299.07, the first option leg uses a $285.00 strike; additional legs (when the strategy has them) anchor to spot-relative offsets. Premiums come from the bid/ask midpoint on the listed CME chain at a 28-day expiry; the cross-strike IV skew is reflected directly in the per-leg values rather than approximated. Quantity sizing assumes one contract per option leg (or 100 CME shares for the stock leg in covered calls and collars).
| Action | Type | Strike / Basis | Premium (est) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sell 1 | Put | $285.00 | $3.35 |
CME cash-secured put risk and reward
- Net Premium / Debit
- +$335.00
- Max Profit (per contract)
- $335.00
- Max Loss (per contract)
- -$28,164.00
- Breakeven(s)
- $281.65
- Risk / Reward Ratio
- 0.012
Max profit equals premium times 100; max loss equals strike minus premium times 100 (at zero, assuming assignment). Breakeven is strike minus premium.
CME cash-secured put payoff curve
Modeled P&L at expiration across a range of underlying prices for the cash-secured put on CME. Each row is one sampled price point from the computed payoff curve; the full curve uses 200 price points internally before being summarized into 10 rows here.
| Underlying Price | % From Spot | P&L at Expiration |
|---|---|---|
| $0.01 | -100.0% | -$28,164.00 |
| $66.13 | -77.9% | -$21,551.51 |
| $132.26 | -55.8% | -$14,939.02 |
| $198.38 | -33.7% | -$8,326.52 |
| $264.51 | -11.6% | -$1,714.03 |
| $330.63 | +10.6% | +$335.00 |
| $396.76 | +32.7% | +$335.00 |
| $462.88 | +54.8% | +$335.00 |
| $529.01 | +76.9% | +$335.00 |
| $595.13 | +99.0% | +$335.00 |
When traders use cash-secured put on CME
Cash-secured puts on CME earn premium while a trader waits to acquire CME stock at a target strike below the current quote; most attractive when IV is rich and the trader is comfortable owning CME.
CME thesis for this cash-secured put
The market-implied 1-standard-deviation range for CME extends from approximately $278.54 on the downside to $319.60 on the upside. A CME cash-secured put lets a trader earn premium while waiting to acquire CME at the strike price; the strategy is most attractive when the trader is comfortable holding the underlying at that level and IV is rich enough to compensate for the assignment risk. Current CME IV rank near 59.87% is mid-range against its 1-year distribution, so the IV signal is neutral; the cash-secured put thesis on CME should anchor more to the directional view and the expected-move geometry. As a Financial Services name, CME options can move on sector-level news flow (peer earnings, regulatory updates, industry-specific macro data) in addition to CME-specific events.
CME cash-secured put positions are structurally neutral to slightly bullish; the modeled P&L assumes European-style exercise at expiration and ignores early assignment, transaction costs, dividends paid before expiry on the stock leg (when present), and the bid-ask spread on the listed chain. CME positions also carry Financial Services sector concentration risk; news flow inside the sector (peer earnings, regulatory shifts, supply-chain headlines) can move CME alongside the broader basket even when CME-specific fundamentals are unchanged. Short-premium structures like a cash-secured put on CME carry tail risk when realized volatility exceeds the implied move; review historical CME earnings reactions and macro stress periods before sizing. Always rebuild the position from current CME chain quotes before placing a trade.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a cash-secured put on CME?
- A cash-secured put on CME is the cash-secured put strategy applied to CME (stock). The strategy is structurally neutral to slightly bullish: A cash-secured put sells an out-of-the-money put while holding cash equal to the strike-times-100 obligation, keeping the premium when the underlying stays above the strike. With CME stock trading near $299.07, the strikes shown on this page are snapped to the nearest listed CME chain strike and the premiums come straight from the end-of-day bid/ask midpoint.
- How are CME cash-secured put max profit and max loss calculated?
- Max profit equals premium times 100; max loss equals strike minus premium times 100 (at zero, assuming assignment). Breakeven is strike minus premium. For the CME cash-secured put priced from the end-of-day chain at a 30-day expiry (ATM IV 23.94%), the computed maximum profit is $335.00 per contract and the computed maximum loss is -$28,164.00 per contract. Live intraday quotes will differ as the chain moves through the trading session.
- What is the breakeven for a CME cash-secured put?
- The breakeven for the CME cash-secured put priced on this page is roughly $281.65 at expiration, derived from end-of-day chain premiums. Breakeven is the underlying price at which the strategy's P&L crosses zero ignoring transaction costs and assignment risk. The current CME market-implied 1-standard-deviation expected move is approximately 6.86%; if the move sits well outside the breakeven distance, the structure's risk-reward becomes correspondingly tighter.
- When should you consider a cash-secured put on CME?
- Cash-secured puts on CME earn premium while a trader waits to acquire CME stock at a target strike below the current quote; most attractive when IV is rich and the trader is comfortable owning CME.
- How does current CME implied volatility affect this cash-secured put?
- CME ATM IV is at 23.94% with IV rank near 59.87%, which is mid-range against its 1-year history. Strategy selection depends more on directional thesis and expected move than on a strong IV signal.