PESI Cash-Secured Put Strategy
PESI (Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc.), in the Industrials sector, (Waste Management industry), listed on NASDAQ.
Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates as an environmental and technology know-how company in the United States. It operates in three segments: Treatment, Services, and Medical. The Treatment segment offers nuclear, low-level radioactive, mixed waste, hazardous and non-hazardous waste treatment, and processing and disposal services through treatment and storage facilities. This segment is also involved in the research and development activities to identify, develop, and implement waste processing techniques for problematic waste streams. The Services segment provides technical services, including professional radiological measurement and site survey of government and commercial installations; integrated occupational safety and health services; and consulting, engineering, project and waste management, environmental, decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) field, technical, on-site waste management services, and management personnel and services. This segment also offers nuclear services, including technology-based services comprising engineering, D&D, specialty, construction, logistics, transportation, processing, and disposal; offers remediation of nuclear licensed and federal facilities, as well as cleanup of nuclear legacy sites; and owns an equipment calibration and maintenance laboratory that services, maintains, calibrates, and sources health physics, industrial hygiene, and customized nuclear, environmental, and occupational safety and health instrumentation.
PESI (Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc.) trades in the Industrials sector, specifically Waste Management, with a market capitalization of approximately $180.1M, a beta of 0.61 versus the broader market, a 52-week range of 8.02-16.5, average daily share volume of 168K, a public-listing history dating back to 1992, approximately 293 full-time employees. These structural characteristics shape how PESI stock options price implied volatility around earnings windows, capital events, and macro-driven sector rotations.
A beta of 0.61 indicates PESI has historically moved less than the broader market, dampening realized volatility and producing tighter expected-move bands per unit of dollar exposure.
What is a cash-secured put on PESI?
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 PESI snapshot
As of May 15, 2026, spot at $9.75, ATM IV 69.10%, IV rank 14.05%, expected move 19.81%. The cash-secured put on PESI 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 PESI specifically: PESI IV at 69.10% is on the cheap side of its 1-year range, which means a premium-selling PESI cash-secured put collects less credit per unit of strike-width risk, with a market-implied 1-standard-deviation move of approximately 19.81% (roughly $1.93 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 PESI expiries trade a higher absolute premium for lower per-day decay. Position sizing on PESI should anchor to the underlying notional of $9.75 per share and to the trader's directional view on PESI stock.
PESI cash-secured put setup
The PESI 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 PESI near $9.75, the first option leg uses a $9.26 strike; additional legs (when the strategy has them) anchor to spot-relative offsets. Premiums come from the bid/ask midpoint on the listed PESI 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 PESI shares for the stock leg in covered calls and collars).
| Action | Type | Strike / Basis | Premium (est) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sell 1 | Put | $9.26 | N/A |
PESI cash-secured put 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 premium times 100; max loss equals strike minus premium times 100 (at zero, assuming assignment). Breakeven is strike minus premium.
PESI cash-secured put payoff curve
Modeled P&L at expiration across a range of underlying prices for the cash-secured put on PESI. 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 cash-secured put on PESI
Cash-secured puts on PESI earn premium while a trader waits to acquire PESI stock at a target strike below the current quote; most attractive when IV is rich and the trader is comfortable owning PESI.
PESI thesis for this cash-secured put
The market-implied 1-standard-deviation range for PESI extends from approximately $7.82 on the downside to $11.68 on the upside. A PESI cash-secured put lets a trader earn premium while waiting to acquire PESI 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 PESI IV rank near 14.05% 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 PESI at 69.10%. As a Industrials name, PESI options can move on sector-level news flow (peer earnings, regulatory updates, industry-specific macro data) in addition to PESI-specific events.
PESI 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. PESI positions also carry Industrials sector concentration risk; news flow inside the sector (peer earnings, regulatory shifts, supply-chain headlines) can move PESI alongside the broader basket even when PESI-specific fundamentals are unchanged. Short-premium structures like a cash-secured put on PESI carry tail risk when realized volatility exceeds the implied move; review historical PESI earnings reactions and macro stress periods before sizing. Always rebuild the position from current PESI chain quotes before placing a trade.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a cash-secured put on PESI?
- A cash-secured put on PESI is the cash-secured put strategy applied to PESI (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 PESI stock trading near $9.75, the strikes shown on this page are snapped to the nearest listed PESI chain strike and the premiums come straight from the end-of-day bid/ask midpoint.
- How are PESI 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 PESI cash-secured put priced from the end-of-day chain at a 30-day expiry (ATM IV 69.10%), 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 PESI cash-secured put?
- The breakeven for the PESI cash-secured put 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 PESI market-implied 1-standard-deviation expected move is approximately 19.81%; 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 PESI?
- Cash-secured puts on PESI earn premium while a trader waits to acquire PESI stock at a target strike below the current quote; most attractive when IV is rich and the trader is comfortable owning PESI.
- How does current PESI implied volatility affect this cash-secured put?
- PESI ATM IV is at 69.10% with IV rank near 14.05%, 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.