CSV Straddle Strategy
CSV (Carriage Services, Inc.), in the Consumer Cyclical sector, (Personal Products & Services industry), listed on NYSE.
Carriage Services, Inc. (CSV) delivers a comprehensive array of funeral and cemetery services, along with associated merchandise, throughout the United States. Its operations are structured into two distinct segments: Funeral Home Operations and Cemetery Operations. The Funeral Home Operations segment offers various services, including consultation, the use of funeral home facilities for visitations and memorial services, transportation, and the removal and preparation of remains. This segment also facilitates the sale of burial and cremation services, alongside related products such as caskets and urns. The Cemetery Operations segment provides rights to interment spaces like grave sites, lawn crypts, mausoleum sections, and niches. Furthermore, it supplies complementary cemetery merchandise, including outer burial containers, memorial markers, monuments, and floral arrangements, and performs interments, inurnments, and the installation of these items.
CSV (Carriage Services, Inc.) trades in the Consumer Cyclical sector, specifically Personal Products & Services, with a market capitalization of approximately $620.3M, a trailing P/E of 13.83, a beta of 0.83 versus the broader market, a 52-week range of 37.11-52.1, average daily share volume of 121K, 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 0.83 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 straddle on CSV?
A long straddle buys an ATM call and an ATM put at the same strike, profiting from a large move in either direction; max loss equals the combined debit when the underlying pins to the strike at expiration.
Current CSV snapshot
As of June 30, 2026, spot at $38.35, ATM IV 52.30%, IV rank 8.41%, expected move 14.99%. The straddle 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 17-day expiry.
Why this straddle structure on CSV specifically: CSV IV at 52.30% is on the cheap side of its 1-year range, which favors premium-buying structures like a CSV straddle, with a market-implied 1-standard-deviation move of approximately 14.99% (roughly $5.75 on the underlying). The 17-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 $38.35 per share and to the trader's directional view on CSV stock.
CSV straddle setup
The CSV straddle 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 $38.35, the first option leg uses a $38.35 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 17-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 | $38.35 | N/A |
| Buy 1 | Put | $38.35 | N/A |
CSV straddle 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
Upside max profit is unbounded; downside max profit is bounded at the strike minus the combined call plus put debit (reached at zero). Max loss equals the combined debit times 100 (reached when the underlying pins to the strike). Two breakevens at strike plus debit and strike minus debit.
CSV straddle payoff curve
Modeled P&L at expiration across a range of underlying prices for the straddle 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 straddle on CSV
Straddles on CSV are pure-volatility plays that profit from large moves in either direction; traders typically buy CSV straddles ahead of earnings, FDA decisions, or other catalysts where the realized move is expected to exceed the implied move priced into the chain.
CSV thesis for this straddle
The market-implied 1-standard-deviation range for CSV extends from approximately $32.60 on the downside to $44.10 on the upside. A CSV long straddle is a pure-volatility play: it profits when the underlying moves far enough from the strike in either direction to overcome the combined call plus put debit, regardless of direction. Current CSV IV rank near 8.41% 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 52.30%. 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 straddle positions are structurally neutral / high-volatility (long premium); 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 straddle on CSV?
- A straddle on CSV is the straddle strategy applied to CSV (stock). The strategy is structurally neutral / high-volatility (long premium): A long straddle buys an ATM call and an ATM put at the same strike, profiting from a large move in either direction; max loss equals the combined debit when the underlying pins to the strike at expiration. With CSV stock trading near $38.35, 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 straddle max profit and max loss calculated?
- Upside max profit is unbounded; downside max profit is bounded at the strike minus the combined call plus put debit (reached at zero). Max loss equals the combined debit times 100 (reached when the underlying pins to the strike). Two breakevens at strike plus debit and strike minus debit. For the CSV straddle priced from the end-of-day chain at a 30-day expiry (ATM IV 52.30%), 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 straddle?
- The breakeven for the CSV straddle 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 14.99%; if the move sits well outside the breakeven distance, the structure's risk-reward becomes correspondingly tighter.
- When should you consider a straddle on CSV?
- Straddles on CSV are pure-volatility plays that profit from large moves in either direction; traders typically buy CSV straddles ahead of earnings, FDA decisions, or other catalysts where the realized move is expected to exceed the implied move priced into the chain.
- How does current CSV implied volatility affect this straddle?
- CSV ATM IV is at 52.30% with IV rank near 8.41%, 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.