PFGC Butterfly Strategy
PFGC (Performance Food Group Company), in the Consumer Defensive sector, (Food Distribution industry), listed on NYSE.
Performance Food Group Company, through its subsidiaries, markets and distributes food and food-related products in the United States. It operates through three segments: Foodservice, Vistar, and Convenience. The company offers a range of frozen foods, groceries, candy, snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and other tobacco products; beef, pork, poultry, and seafood; and health and beauty care products. It also sells disposables, cleaning and kitchen supplies, and related products. In addition, the company offers value-added services, such as product selection and procurement, menu development, and operational strategy. It serves independent and chain restaurants, schools, business and industry locations, hospitals, vending distributors, office coffee service distributors, retailers, convenience stores, theaters, hospitality providers, concessionaires, airport gift shops, college bookstores, corrections facilities, and impulse locations, as well as franchises and other institutional customers.
PFGC (Performance Food Group Company) trades in the Consumer Defensive sector, specifically Food Distribution, with a market capitalization of approximately $15.05B, a trailing P/E of 45.45, a beta of 0.92 versus the broader market, a 52-week range of 80.82-109.05, average daily share volume of 1.8M, a public-listing history dating back to 2015, approximately 37K full-time employees. These structural characteristics shape how PFGC stock options price implied volatility around earnings windows, capital events, and macro-driven sector rotations.
A beta of 0.92 places PFGC roughly in line with broader market moves, so the strategy payoff and realized volatility track the index-equivalent baseline. The trailing P/E of 45.45 is on the rich side, which tends to correlate with higher earnings-window IV expansion as the market debates whether forward growth supports the multiple.
What is a butterfly on PFGC?
A long call butterfly buys one lower-strike call, sells two ATM calls, and buys one higher-strike call, paying a small net debit for a defined-risk position that maxes out if the underlying pins the middle strike at expiration.
Current PFGC snapshot
As of May 15, 2026, spot at $96.50, ATM IV 31.30%, IV rank 25.07%, expected move 8.97%. The butterfly on PFGC 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 butterfly structure on PFGC specifically: PFGC IV at 31.30% is on the cheap side of its 1-year range, which favors premium-buying structures like a PFGC butterfly, with a market-implied 1-standard-deviation move of approximately 8.97% (roughly $8.66 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 PFGC expiries trade a higher absolute premium for lower per-day decay. Position sizing on PFGC should anchor to the underlying notional of $96.50 per share and to the trader's directional view on PFGC stock.
PFGC butterfly setup
The PFGC butterfly below is built from the end-of-day chain, with each option leg priced at the bid/ask midpoint of its listed strike. With PFGC near $96.50, the first option leg uses a $90.00 strike; additional legs (when the strategy has them) anchor to spot-relative offsets. Premiums come from the bid/ask midpoint on the listed PFGC 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 PFGC shares for the stock leg in covered calls and collars).
| Action | Type | Strike / Basis | Premium (est) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buy 1 | Call | $90.00 | $8.30 |
| Sell 2 | Call | $95.00 | $4.75 |
| Buy 1 | Call | $100.00 | $2.45 |
PFGC butterfly risk and reward
- Net Premium / Debit
- -$125.00
- Max Profit (per contract)
- $369.97
- Max Loss (per contract)
- -$125.00
- Breakeven(s)
- $91.25, $98.75
- Risk / Reward Ratio
- 2.960
Max profit equals the wing width minus net debit times 100 (reached when the underlying pins the middle strike); max loss equals the net debit times 100. Two breakevens at lower-wing plus debit and upper-wing minus debit.
PFGC butterfly payoff curve
Modeled P&L at expiration across a range of underlying prices for the butterfly on PFGC. 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% | -$125.00 |
| $21.35 | -77.9% | -$125.00 |
| $42.68 | -55.8% | -$125.00 |
| $64.02 | -33.7% | -$125.00 |
| $85.35 | -11.6% | -$125.00 |
| $106.69 | +10.6% | -$125.00 |
| $128.02 | +32.7% | -$125.00 |
| $149.36 | +54.8% | -$125.00 |
| $170.69 | +76.9% | -$125.00 |
| $192.03 | +99.0% | -$125.00 |
When traders use butterfly on PFGC
Butterflies on PFGC are pinning bets - traders use them when they expect PFGC to settle near a specific level at expiration (often the prior close, a round number, or the max-pain strike) and want defined-risk exposure to that outcome.
PFGC thesis for this butterfly
The market-implied 1-standard-deviation range for PFGC extends from approximately $87.84 on the downside to $105.16 on the upside. A PFGC long call butterfly is a pinning play: it pays maximum at the middle strike if PFGC settles there at expiration, with the wing legs capping both the cost and the maximum loss to the net debit. Current PFGC IV rank near 25.07% 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 PFGC at 31.30%. As a Consumer Defensive name, PFGC options can move on sector-level news flow (peer earnings, regulatory updates, industry-specific macro data) in addition to PFGC-specific events.
PFGC butterfly positions are structurally neutral / pin (limited-risk, limited-reward); 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. PFGC positions also carry Consumer Defensive sector concentration risk; news flow inside the sector (peer earnings, regulatory shifts, supply-chain headlines) can move PFGC alongside the broader basket even when PFGC-specific fundamentals are unchanged. Always rebuild the position from current PFGC chain quotes before placing a trade.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a butterfly on PFGC?
- A butterfly on PFGC is the butterfly strategy applied to PFGC (stock). The strategy is structurally neutral / pin (limited-risk, limited-reward): A long call butterfly buys one lower-strike call, sells two ATM calls, and buys one higher-strike call, paying a small net debit for a defined-risk position that maxes out if the underlying pins the middle strike at expiration. With PFGC stock trading near $96.50, the strikes shown on this page are snapped to the nearest listed PFGC chain strike and the premiums come straight from the end-of-day bid/ask midpoint.
- How are PFGC butterfly max profit and max loss calculated?
- Max profit equals the wing width minus net debit times 100 (reached when the underlying pins the middle strike); max loss equals the net debit times 100. Two breakevens at lower-wing plus debit and upper-wing minus debit. For the PFGC butterfly priced from the end-of-day chain at a 30-day expiry (ATM IV 31.30%), the computed maximum profit is $369.97 per contract and the computed maximum loss is -$125.00 per contract. Live intraday quotes will differ as the chain moves through the trading session.
- What is the breakeven for a PFGC butterfly?
- The breakeven for the PFGC butterfly priced on this page is roughly $91.25 and $98.75 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 PFGC market-implied 1-standard-deviation expected move is approximately 8.97%; if the move sits well outside the breakeven distance, the structure's risk-reward becomes correspondingly tighter.
- When should you consider a butterfly on PFGC?
- Butterflies on PFGC are pinning bets - traders use them when they expect PFGC to settle near a specific level at expiration (often the prior close, a round number, or the max-pain strike) and want defined-risk exposure to that outcome.
- How does current PFGC implied volatility affect this butterfly?
- PFGC ATM IV is at 31.30% with IV rank near 25.07%, 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.