POST Collar Strategy
POST (Post Holdings, Inc.), in the Consumer Defensive sector, (Packaged Foods industry), listed on NYSE.
Post Holdings, Inc. operates as a consumer packaged goods holding company in the United States and internationally. It operates through five segments: Post Consumer Brands, Weetabix, Foodservice, Refrigerated Retail, and BellRing Brands. The Post Consumer Brands segment manufactures, markets, and sells branded and private label ready-to-eat (RTE) cereal and hot cereal products. It serves grocery stores, mass merchandise customers, supercenters, club stores, natural/specialty stores, and drug store customers, as well as sells its products in the military, ecommerce, and foodservice channels. The Weetabix segment primarily markets and distributes branded and private label RTE cereal, hot cereals and other cereal-based food products, breakfast drinks, and muesli. This segment sells its products to grocery stores, discounters, wholesalers, and convenience stores, as well as through ecommerce.
POST (Post Holdings, Inc.) trades in the Consumer Defensive sector, specifically Packaged Foods, with a market capitalization of approximately $4.73B, a trailing P/E of 14.76, a beta of 0.36 versus the broader market, a 52-week range of 94.13-117.28, average daily share volume of 752K, a public-listing history dating back to 2012, approximately 11K full-time employees. These structural characteristics shape how POST stock options price implied volatility around earnings windows, capital events, and macro-driven sector rotations.
A beta of 0.36 indicates POST 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 collar on POST?
A collar pairs long stock with a protective out-of-the-money put financed by a short out-of-the-money call, capping both tails of the position around the current spot.
Current POST snapshot
As of May 15, 2026, spot at $101.44, ATM IV 27.70%, IV rank 44.48%, expected move 7.94%. The collar on POST 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 collar structure on POST specifically: IV regime affects collar pricing on both sides; mid-range POST IV at 27.70% typically pushes the short call premium to roughly offset the long put cost, with a market-implied 1-standard-deviation move of approximately 7.94% (roughly $8.06 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 POST expiries trade a higher absolute premium for lower per-day decay. Position sizing on POST should anchor to the underlying notional of $101.44 per share and to the trader's directional view on POST stock.
POST collar setup
The POST collar below is built from the end-of-day chain, with each option leg priced at the bid/ask midpoint of its listed strike. With POST near $101.44, the first option leg uses a $105.00 strike; additional legs (when the strategy has them) anchor to spot-relative offsets. Premiums come from the bid/ask midpoint on the listed POST 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 POST shares for the stock leg in covered calls and collars).
| Action | Type | Strike / Basis | Premium (est) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buy 100 shares | Stock | $101.44 | long |
| Sell 1 | Call | $105.00 | $1.93 |
| Buy 1 | Put | $95.00 | $1.73 |
POST collar risk and reward
- Net Premium / Debit
- -$10,124.00
- Max Profit (per contract)
- $376.00
- Max Loss (per contract)
- -$624.00
- Breakeven(s)
- $101.24
- Risk / Reward Ratio
- 0.603
Max profit roughly equals short-call strike minus cost basis plus net premium; max loss roughly equals cost basis minus long-put strike minus net premium. Breakeven shifts by the net premium.
POST collar payoff curve
Modeled P&L at expiration across a range of underlying prices for the collar on POST. 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% | -$624.00 |
| $22.44 | -77.9% | -$624.00 |
| $44.87 | -55.8% | -$624.00 |
| $67.29 | -33.7% | -$624.00 |
| $89.72 | -11.6% | -$624.00 |
| $112.15 | +10.6% | +$376.00 |
| $134.58 | +32.7% | +$376.00 |
| $157.00 | +54.8% | +$376.00 |
| $179.43 | +76.9% | +$376.00 |
| $201.86 | +99.0% | +$376.00 |
When traders use collar on POST
Collars on POST hedge an existing long POST stock position; the long put sets a floor while the short call finances it, often run as a near-zero-cost hedge during expected volatility windows.
POST thesis for this collar
The market-implied 1-standard-deviation range for POST extends from approximately $93.38 on the downside to $109.50 on the upside. A POST collar hedges an existing long POST position with a protective put while financing the put cost via a short call; when the premiums roughly offset, the collar acts as a near-zero-cost insurance band around the current spot. Current POST IV rank near 44.48% is mid-range against its 1-year distribution, so the IV signal is neutral; the collar thesis on POST should anchor more to the directional view and the expected-move geometry. As a Consumer Defensive name, POST options can move on sector-level news flow (peer earnings, regulatory updates, industry-specific macro data) in addition to POST-specific events.
POST collar positions are structurally neutral (protective); 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. POST positions also carry Consumer Defensive sector concentration risk; news flow inside the sector (peer earnings, regulatory shifts, supply-chain headlines) can move POST alongside the broader basket even when POST-specific fundamentals are unchanged. Always rebuild the position from current POST chain quotes before placing a trade.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a collar on POST?
- A collar on POST is the collar strategy applied to POST (stock). The strategy is structurally neutral (protective): A collar pairs long stock with a protective out-of-the-money put financed by a short out-of-the-money call, capping both tails of the position around the current spot. With POST stock trading near $101.44, the strikes shown on this page are snapped to the nearest listed POST chain strike and the premiums come straight from the end-of-day bid/ask midpoint.
- How are POST collar max profit and max loss calculated?
- Max profit roughly equals short-call strike minus cost basis plus net premium; max loss roughly equals cost basis minus long-put strike minus net premium. Breakeven shifts by the net premium. For the POST collar priced from the end-of-day chain at a 30-day expiry (ATM IV 27.70%), the computed maximum profit is $376.00 per contract and the computed maximum loss is -$624.00 per contract. Live intraday quotes will differ as the chain moves through the trading session.
- What is the breakeven for a POST collar?
- The breakeven for the POST collar priced on this page is roughly $101.24 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 POST market-implied 1-standard-deviation expected move is approximately 7.94%; if the move sits well outside the breakeven distance, the structure's risk-reward becomes correspondingly tighter.
- When should you consider a collar on POST?
- Collars on POST hedge an existing long POST stock position; the long put sets a floor while the short call finances it, often run as a near-zero-cost hedge during expected volatility windows.
- How does current POST implied volatility affect this collar?
- POST ATM IV is at 27.70% with IV rank near 44.48%, which is mid-range against its 1-year history. Strategy selection depends more on directional thesis and expected move than on a strong IV signal.