CSV Strangle 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 strangle on CSV?
A long strangle buys an OTM call and an OTM put at offset strikes, cheaper than a straddle but requiring a larger underlying move to profit since both wings start out-of-the-money.
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 strangle 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 strangle 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 strangle, 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 strangle setup
The CSV strangle 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 $45.20 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 | $45.20 | N/A |
| Buy 1 | Put | $40.90 | N/A |
CSV strangle 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 put strike minus the combined debit (reached at zero). Max loss equals the combined debit times 100 (reached anywhere between the two OTM strikes). Two breakevens at call-strike plus debit and put-strike minus debit.
CSV strangle payoff curve
Modeled P&L at expiration across a range of underlying prices for the strangle 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 strangle on CSV
Strangles on CSV are the cheaper cousin of the straddle - traders use them when they want a large directional move but are willing to give up the inner-strike sensitivity in exchange for a lower up-front debit on the CSV chain.
CSV thesis for this strangle
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 strangle is the OTM cousin of the straddle: lower up-front cost but the underlying has to travel further past either OTM strike before the position turns profitable at expiration. 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 strangle positions are structurally neutral / high-volatility (long premium, OTM); 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 strangle on CSV?
- A strangle on CSV is the strangle strategy applied to CSV (stock). The strategy is structurally neutral / high-volatility (long premium, OTM): A long strangle buys an OTM call and an OTM put at offset strikes, cheaper than a straddle but requiring a larger underlying move to profit since both wings start out-of-the-money. 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 strangle max profit and max loss calculated?
- Upside max profit is unbounded; downside max profit is bounded at the put strike minus the combined debit (reached at zero). Max loss equals the combined debit times 100 (reached anywhere between the two OTM strikes). Two breakevens at call-strike plus debit and put-strike minus debit. For the CSV strangle 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 strangle?
- The breakeven for the CSV strangle 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 strangle on CSV?
- Strangles on CSV are the cheaper cousin of the straddle - traders use them when they want a large directional move but are willing to give up the inner-strike sensitivity in exchange for a lower up-front debit on the CSV chain.
- How does current CSV implied volatility affect this strangle?
- 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.