MRCY Cash-Secured Put 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 cash-secured put on MRCY?
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 MRCY snapshot
As of May 15, 2026, spot at $91.99, ATM IV 54.10%, IV rank 24.73%, expected move 15.51%. The cash-secured put 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 cash-secured put structure on MRCY specifically: MRCY IV at 54.10% is on the cheap side of its 1-year range, which means a premium-selling MRCY cash-secured put collects less credit per unit of strike-width risk, 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 cash-secured put setup
The MRCY 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 MRCY near $91.99, the first option leg uses a $87.50 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) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sell 1 | Put | $87.50 | $4.10 |
MRCY cash-secured put risk and reward
- Net Premium / Debit
- +$410.00
- Max Profit (per contract)
- $410.00
- Max Loss (per contract)
- -$8,339.00
- Breakeven(s)
- $83.40
- Risk / Reward Ratio
- 0.049
Max profit equals premium times 100; max loss equals strike minus premium times 100 (at zero, assuming assignment). Breakeven is strike minus premium.
MRCY cash-secured put payoff curve
Modeled P&L at expiration across a range of underlying prices for the cash-secured put 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% | -$8,339.00 |
| $20.35 | -77.9% | -$6,305.16 |
| $40.69 | -55.8% | -$4,271.32 |
| $61.03 | -33.7% | -$2,237.48 |
| $81.36 | -11.6% | -$203.64 |
| $101.70 | +10.6% | +$410.00 |
| $122.04 | +32.7% | +$410.00 |
| $142.38 | +54.8% | +$410.00 |
| $162.72 | +76.9% | +$410.00 |
| $183.06 | +99.0% | +$410.00 |
When traders use cash-secured put on MRCY
Cash-secured puts on MRCY earn premium while a trader waits to acquire MRCY stock at a target strike below the current quote; most attractive when IV is rich and the trader is comfortable owning MRCY.
MRCY thesis for this cash-secured put
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 cash-secured put lets a trader earn premium while waiting to acquire MRCY 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 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 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. 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. Short-premium structures like a cash-secured put on MRCY carry tail risk when realized volatility exceeds the implied move; review historical MRCY earnings reactions and macro stress periods before sizing. Always rebuild the position from current MRCY chain quotes before placing a trade.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a cash-secured put on MRCY?
- A cash-secured put on MRCY is the cash-secured put strategy applied to MRCY (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 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 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 MRCY cash-secured put priced from the end-of-day chain at a 30-day expiry (ATM IV 54.10%), the computed maximum profit is $410.00 per contract and the computed maximum loss is -$8,339.00 per contract. Live intraday quotes will differ as the chain moves through the trading session.
- What is the breakeven for a MRCY cash-secured put?
- The breakeven for the MRCY cash-secured put priced on this page is roughly $83.40 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 cash-secured put on MRCY?
- Cash-secured puts on MRCY earn premium while a trader waits to acquire MRCY stock at a target strike below the current quote; most attractive when IV is rich and the trader is comfortable owning MRCY.
- How does current MRCY implied volatility affect this cash-secured put?
- 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.