CSV Butterfly Strategy
CSV (Carriage Services, Inc.), in the Consumer Cyclical sector, (Personal Products & Services industry), listed on NYSE.
Carriage Services, Inc. provides funeral and cemetery services, and merchandise in the United States. It operates through two segments, Funeral Home Operations and Cemetery Operations. The Funeral Home Operations segment engages in the provision of consultation, funeral home facilities for visitation and memorial services, and transportation services; removal and preparation of remains; and sale of burial and cremation services, and related merchandise, such as caskets and urns. The Cemetery Operations segment provides interment rights for grave sites, lawn crypts, mausoleum spaces, and niche; related cemetery merchandise, including outer burial containers, memorial markers, monuments, and floral placements; and interments, inurnments, and installation of cemetery merchandise services. As of December 31, 2021, it operated 170 funeral homes in 26 states and 31 cemeteries in 11 states. Carriage Services, Inc. was founded in 1991 and is based in Houston, Texas.
CSV (Carriage Services, Inc.) trades in the Consumer Cyclical sector, specifically Personal Products & Services, with a market capitalization of approximately $684.3M, a trailing P/E of 15.26, a beta of 0.89 versus the broader market, a 52-week range of 39.88-52.1, average daily share volume of 99K, a public-listing history dating back to 1996, approximately 1K full-time employees. These structural characteristics shape how CSV stock options price implied volatility around earnings windows, capital events, and macro-driven sector rotations.
A beta of 0.89 places CSV roughly in line with broader market moves, so the strategy payoff and realized volatility track the index-equivalent baseline. CSV pays a dividend, which adjusts put-call parity and shifts the ex-dividend pricing across the listed chain.
What is a butterfly on CSV?
A long call butterfly buys one lower-strike call, sells two ATM calls, and buys one higher-strike call, paying a small net debit for a defined-risk position that maxes out if the underlying pins the middle strike at expiration.
Current CSV snapshot
As of May 15, 2026, spot at $43.05, ATM IV 28.80%, IV rank 2.88%, expected move 8.26%. The butterfly on CSV 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 34-day expiry.
Why this butterfly structure on CSV specifically: CSV IV at 28.80% is on the cheap side of its 1-year range, which favors premium-buying structures like a CSV butterfly, with a market-implied 1-standard-deviation move of approximately 8.26% (roughly $3.55 on the underlying). The 34-day window matched to the front-month expiry keeps theta exposure bounded while still capturing the post-snapshot move; longer-dated CSV expiries trade a higher absolute premium for lower per-day decay. Position sizing on CSV should anchor to the underlying notional of $43.05 per share and to the trader's directional view on CSV stock.
CSV butterfly setup
The CSV butterfly below is built from the end-of-day chain, with each option leg priced at the bid/ask midpoint of its listed strike. With CSV near $43.05, the first option leg uses a $40.90 strike; additional legs (when the strategy has them) anchor to spot-relative offsets. Premiums come from the bid/ask midpoint on the listed CSV chain at a 34-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 CSV shares for the stock leg in covered calls and collars).
| Action | Type | Strike / Basis | Premium (est) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buy 1 | Call | $40.90 | N/A |
| Sell 2 | Call | $43.05 | N/A |
| Buy 1 | Call | $45.20 | N/A |
CSV butterfly risk and reward
- Net Premium / Debit
- N/A
- Max Profit (per contract)
- Unbounded
- Max Loss (per contract)
- Unbounded
- Breakeven(s)
- None on modeled curve
- Risk / Reward Ratio
- N/A
Max profit equals the wing width minus net debit times 100 (reached when the underlying pins the middle strike); max loss equals the net debit times 100. Two breakevens at lower-wing plus debit and upper-wing minus debit.
CSV butterfly payoff curve
Modeled P&L at expiration across a range of underlying prices for the butterfly on CSV. 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.
When traders use butterfly on CSV
Butterflies on CSV are pinning bets - traders use them when they expect CSV to settle near a specific level at expiration (often the prior close, a round number, or the max-pain strike) and want defined-risk exposure to that outcome.
CSV thesis for this butterfly
The market-implied 1-standard-deviation range for CSV extends from approximately $39.50 on the downside to $46.60 on the upside. A CSV long call butterfly is a pinning play: it pays maximum at the middle strike if CSV settles there at expiration, with the wing legs capping both the cost and the maximum loss to the net debit. Current CSV IV rank near 2.88% sits in the lower third of its 1-year distribution, where IV often re-expands toward the mean; this favors premium-buying structures and disadvantages premium-selling structures on CSV at 28.80%. As a Consumer Cyclical name, CSV options can move on sector-level news flow (peer earnings, regulatory updates, industry-specific macro data) in addition to CSV-specific events.
CSV butterfly positions are structurally neutral / pin (limited-risk, limited-reward); 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. CSV positions also carry Consumer Cyclical sector concentration risk; news flow inside the sector (peer earnings, regulatory shifts, supply-chain headlines) can move CSV alongside the broader basket even when CSV-specific fundamentals are unchanged. Always rebuild the position from current CSV chain quotes before placing a trade.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a butterfly on CSV?
- A butterfly on CSV is the butterfly strategy applied to CSV (stock). The strategy is structurally neutral / pin (limited-risk, limited-reward): A long call butterfly buys one lower-strike call, sells two ATM calls, and buys one higher-strike call, paying a small net debit for a defined-risk position that maxes out if the underlying pins the middle strike at expiration. With CSV stock trading near $43.05, the strikes shown on this page are snapped to the nearest listed CSV chain strike and the premiums come straight from the end-of-day bid/ask midpoint.
- How are CSV butterfly max profit and max loss calculated?
- Max profit equals the wing width minus net debit times 100 (reached when the underlying pins the middle strike); max loss equals the net debit times 100. Two breakevens at lower-wing plus debit and upper-wing minus debit. For the CSV butterfly priced from the end-of-day chain at a 30-day expiry (ATM IV 28.80%), the computed maximum profit is unbounded per contract and the computed maximum loss is unbounded per contract. Live intraday quotes will differ as the chain moves through the trading session.
- What is the breakeven for a CSV butterfly?
- The breakeven for the CSV butterfly priced on this page is no defined breakeven on the modeled curve 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 CSV market-implied 1-standard-deviation expected move is approximately 8.26%; if the move sits well outside the breakeven distance, the structure's risk-reward becomes correspondingly tighter.
- When should you consider a butterfly on CSV?
- Butterflies on CSV are pinning bets - traders use them when they expect CSV to settle near a specific level at expiration (often the prior close, a round number, or the max-pain strike) and want defined-risk exposure to that outcome.
- How does current CSV implied volatility affect this butterfly?
- CSV ATM IV is at 28.80% with IV rank near 2.88%, which is on the low end of its 1-year range. Premium-buying structures (long call, long put, debit spreads) are relatively cheap in this regime; premium-selling structures collect less credit per unit risk.