MRCY Bear Put Spread Strategy
MRCY (Mercury Systems, Inc.), in the Industrials sector, (Aerospace & Defense industry), listed on NASDAQ.
Mercury Systems, Inc., a technology company, manufactures and sells components, products, modules, and subsystems for aerospace and defense industries in the United States, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. Its products and solutions are deployed in approximately 300 programs with 25 defense contractors and commercial aviation customers. The company offers components, including power amplifiers and limiters, switches, oscillators, filters, equalizers, digital and analog converters, chips, monolithic microwave integrated circuits, and memory and storage devices; modules and sub-assemblies, such as embedded processing modules and boards, switched fabric boards, digital receiver boards, multi-chip modules, integrated radio frequency and microwave multi-function assemblies, tuners, and transceivers, as well as graphics and video processing, and Ethernet and input-output boards; and integrated subsystems. It also designs and develops digital radio frequency memory units for various modern electronic warfare applications; radar environment simulation and test systems for defense and intelligence applications; and signals intelligence payloads and EO/IR technologies for small UAV platforms, as well as onboard UAV processor systems for real-time wide area motion imagery. The company was formerly known as Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. and changed its name to Mercury Systems, Inc. in November 2012. Mercury Systems, Inc. was incorporated in 1981 and is headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts.
MRCY (Mercury Systems, Inc.) trades in the Industrials sector, specifically Aerospace & Defense, with a market capitalization of approximately $5.55B, a beta of 0.83 versus the broader market, a 52-week range of 44.01-103.84, average daily share volume of 568K, a public-listing history dating back to 1998, approximately 2K full-time employees. These structural characteristics shape how MRCY stock options price implied volatility around earnings windows, capital events, and macro-driven sector rotations.
A beta of 0.83 places MRCY roughly in line with broader market moves, so the strategy payoff and realized volatility track the index-equivalent baseline.
What is a bear put spread on MRCY?
A bear put spread buys an at-the-money put and sells an out-of-the-money put at a lower strike for defined risk and defined reward bounded by the strike width.
Current MRCY snapshot
As of May 15, 2026, spot at $91.99, ATM IV 54.10%, IV rank 24.73%, expected move 15.51%. The bear put spread on MRCY 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 bear put spread structure on MRCY specifically: MRCY IV at 54.10% is on the cheap side of its 1-year range, which favors premium-buying structures like a MRCY bear put spread, with a market-implied 1-standard-deviation move of approximately 15.51% (roughly $14.27 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 MRCY expiries trade a higher absolute premium for lower per-day decay. Position sizing on MRCY should anchor to the underlying notional of $91.99 per share and to the trader's directional view on MRCY stock.
MRCY bear put spread setup
The MRCY bear put spread below is built from the end-of-day chain, with each option leg priced at the bid/ask midpoint of its listed strike. With MRCY near $91.99, the first option leg uses a $92.50 strike; additional legs (when the strategy has them) anchor to spot-relative offsets. Premiums come from the bid/ask midpoint on the listed MRCY 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 MRCY shares for the stock leg in covered calls and collars).
| Action | Type | Strike / Basis | Premium (est) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buy 1 | Put | $92.50 | $6.40 |
| Sell 1 | Put | $87.50 | $4.10 |
MRCY bear put spread risk and reward
- Net Premium / Debit
- -$230.00
- Max Profit (per contract)
- $270.00
- Max Loss (per contract)
- -$230.00
- Breakeven(s)
- $90.20
- Risk / Reward Ratio
- 1.174
Max profit equals strike width minus net debit times 100; max loss equals net debit times 100. Breakeven is long-put strike minus net debit.
MRCY bear put spread payoff curve
Modeled P&L at expiration across a range of underlying prices for the bear put spread on MRCY. 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% | +$270.00 |
| $20.35 | -77.9% | +$270.00 |
| $40.69 | -55.8% | +$270.00 |
| $61.03 | -33.7% | +$270.00 |
| $81.36 | -11.6% | +$270.00 |
| $101.70 | +10.6% | -$230.00 |
| $122.04 | +32.7% | -$230.00 |
| $142.38 | +54.8% | -$230.00 |
| $162.72 | +76.9% | -$230.00 |
| $183.06 | +99.0% | -$230.00 |
When traders use bear put spread on MRCY
Bear put spreads on MRCY reduce the cost of a bearish MRCY stock position by selling a lower-strike put; suited to moderate-decline theses where price reaches but does not vastly exceed the short strike.
MRCY thesis for this bear put spread
The market-implied 1-standard-deviation range for MRCY extends from approximately $77.72 on the downside to $106.26 on the upside. A MRCY bear put spread caps both the risk and the reward of a bearish position; relative to an outright long put on MRCY, the spread reduces the cost basis but limits the maximum profit to the strike width minus net debit. Current MRCY IV rank near 24.73% 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 MRCY at 54.10%. As a Industrials name, MRCY options can move on sector-level news flow (peer earnings, regulatory updates, industry-specific macro data) in addition to MRCY-specific events.
MRCY bear put spread positions are structurally moderately bearish; 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. MRCY positions also carry Industrials sector concentration risk; news flow inside the sector (peer earnings, regulatory shifts, supply-chain headlines) can move MRCY alongside the broader basket even when MRCY-specific fundamentals are unchanged. Long-premium structures like a bear put spread on MRCY are particularly exposed to IV-crush risk through scheduled events (earnings, FDA decisions, central-bank meetings) where IV typically contracts post-event regardless of the directional outcome. Always rebuild the position from current MRCY chain quotes before placing a trade.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a bear put spread on MRCY?
- A bear put spread on MRCY is the bear put spread strategy applied to MRCY (stock). The strategy is structurally moderately bearish: A bear put spread buys an at-the-money put and sells an out-of-the-money put at a lower strike for defined risk and defined reward bounded by the strike width. With MRCY stock trading near $91.99, the strikes shown on this page are snapped to the nearest listed MRCY chain strike and the premiums come straight from the end-of-day bid/ask midpoint.
- How are MRCY bear put spread max profit and max loss calculated?
- Max profit equals strike width minus net debit times 100; max loss equals net debit times 100. Breakeven is long-put strike minus net debit. For the MRCY bear put spread priced from the end-of-day chain at a 30-day expiry (ATM IV 54.10%), the computed maximum profit is $270.00 per contract and the computed maximum loss is -$230.00 per contract. Live intraday quotes will differ as the chain moves through the trading session.
- What is the breakeven for a MRCY bear put spread?
- The breakeven for the MRCY bear put spread priced on this page is roughly $90.20 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 MRCY market-implied 1-standard-deviation expected move is approximately 15.51%; if the move sits well outside the breakeven distance, the structure's risk-reward becomes correspondingly tighter.
- When should you consider a bear put spread on MRCY?
- Bear put spreads on MRCY reduce the cost of a bearish MRCY stock position by selling a lower-strike put; suited to moderate-decline theses where price reaches but does not vastly exceed the short strike.
- How does current MRCY implied volatility affect this bear put spread?
- MRCY ATM IV is at 54.10% with IV rank near 24.73%, 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.