RILY Bear Put Spread Strategy

RILY (BRC Group Holdings, Inc.), in the Financial Services sector, (Financial - Conglomerates industry), listed on NASDAQ.

B. Riley Financial, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides investment banking and financial services to corporate, institutional, and high net worth clients in North America, Australia, and Europe. The company operates in six segments: Capital Markets, Wealth Management, Auction and Liquidation, Financial Consulting, Principal Investments–Communications, and Brands. The Capital Markets segments offers investment banking, corporate finance, financial advisory, research, securities lending and sales, and trading services; merger and acquisitions, restructuring advisory, initial and secondary public offerings, and institutional private placements services; asset management services; and trades in equity securities. The Wealth Management segment provides wealth management and tax services. The Auction and Liquidation Segment offers retail store liquidation, and wholesale and industrial assets disposition services.

RILY (BRC Group Holdings, Inc.) trades in the Financial Services sector, specifically Financial - Conglomerates, with a market capitalization of approximately $311.5M, a trailing P/E of 0.55, a beta of 1.16 versus the broader market, a 52-week range of 2.79-10.97, average daily share volume of 815K, a public-listing history dating back to 2007, approximately 2K full-time employees. These structural characteristics shape how RILY stock options price implied volatility around earnings windows, capital events, and macro-driven sector rotations.

A beta of 1.16 places RILY roughly in line with broader market moves, so the strategy payoff and realized volatility track the index-equivalent baseline. The trailing P/E of 0.55 is on the value side, where IV often compresses outside event windows because forward growth expectations are already discounted into the share price. RILY pays a dividend, which adjusts put-call parity and shifts the ex-dividend pricing across the listed chain.

What is a bear put spread on RILY?

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 RILY snapshot

As of May 15, 2026, spot at $9.09, ATM IV 82.64%, IV rank 3.22%, expected move 23.69%. The bear put spread on RILY 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 28-day expiry.

Why this bear put spread structure on RILY specifically: RILY IV at 82.64% is on the cheap side of its 1-year range, which favors premium-buying structures like a RILY bear put spread, with a market-implied 1-standard-deviation move of approximately 23.69% (roughly $2.15 on the underlying). The 28-day window matched to the front-month expiry keeps theta exposure bounded while still capturing the post-snapshot move; longer-dated RILY expiries trade a higher absolute premium for lower per-day decay. Position sizing on RILY should anchor to the underlying notional of $9.09 per share and to the trader's directional view on RILY stock.

RILY bear put spread setup

The RILY 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 RILY near $9.09, the first option leg uses a $9.00 strike; additional legs (when the strategy has them) anchor to spot-relative offsets. Premiums come from the bid/ask midpoint on the listed RILY chain at a 28-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 RILY shares for the stock leg in covered calls and collars).

ActionTypeStrike / BasisPremium (est)
Buy 1Put$9.00$0.71
Sell 1Put$8.50$0.52

RILY bear put spread risk and reward

Net Premium / Debit
-$19.00
Max Profit (per contract)
$31.00
Max Loss (per contract)
-$19.00
Breakeven(s)
$8.81
Risk / Reward Ratio
1.632

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.

RILY bear put spread payoff curve

Modeled P&L at expiration across a range of underlying prices for the bear put spread on RILY. 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 SpotP&L at Expiration
$0.01-99.9%+$31.00
$2.02-77.8%+$31.00
$4.03-55.7%+$31.00
$6.04-33.6%+$31.00
$8.04-11.5%+$31.00
$10.05+10.6%-$19.00
$12.06+32.7%-$19.00
$14.07+54.8%-$19.00
$16.08+76.9%-$19.00
$18.09+99.0%-$19.00

When traders use bear put spread on RILY

Bear put spreads on RILY reduce the cost of a bearish RILY stock position by selling a lower-strike put; suited to moderate-decline theses where price reaches but does not vastly exceed the short strike.

RILY thesis for this bear put spread

The market-implied 1-standard-deviation range for RILY extends from approximately $6.94 on the downside to $11.24 on the upside. A RILY bear put spread caps both the risk and the reward of a bearish position; relative to an outright long put on RILY, the spread reduces the cost basis but limits the maximum profit to the strike width minus net debit. Current RILY IV rank near 3.22% 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 RILY at 82.64%. As a Financial Services name, RILY options can move on sector-level news flow (peer earnings, regulatory updates, industry-specific macro data) in addition to RILY-specific events.

RILY 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. RILY positions also carry Financial Services sector concentration risk; news flow inside the sector (peer earnings, regulatory shifts, supply-chain headlines) can move RILY alongside the broader basket even when RILY-specific fundamentals are unchanged. Long-premium structures like a bear put spread on RILY 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 RILY chain quotes before placing a trade.

Frequently asked questions

What is a bear put spread on RILY?
A bear put spread on RILY is the bear put spread strategy applied to RILY (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 RILY stock trading near $9.09, the strikes shown on this page are snapped to the nearest listed RILY chain strike and the premiums come straight from the end-of-day bid/ask midpoint.
How are RILY 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 RILY bear put spread priced from the end-of-day chain at a 30-day expiry (ATM IV 82.64%), the computed maximum profit is $31.00 per contract and the computed maximum loss is -$19.00 per contract. Live intraday quotes will differ as the chain moves through the trading session.
What is the breakeven for a RILY bear put spread?
The breakeven for the RILY bear put spread priced on this page is roughly $8.81 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 RILY market-implied 1-standard-deviation expected move is approximately 23.69%; 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 RILY?
Bear put spreads on RILY reduce the cost of a bearish RILY 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 RILY implied volatility affect this bear put spread?
RILY ATM IV is at 82.64% with IV rank near 3.22%, 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.

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