How are WDAY 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 WDAY butterfly priced from the end-of-day chain at a 30-day expiry (ATM IV 74.92%), the computed maximum profit is $569.95 per contract and the computed maximum loss is -$115.00 per contract. Live intraday quotes will differ as the chain moves through the trading session.

What is the breakeven for a WDAY butterfly?

The breakeven for the WDAY butterfly priced on this page is roughly $117.82 and $129.85 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 WDAY market-implied 1-standard-deviation expected move is approximately 21.48%; if the move sits well outside the breakeven distance, the structure's risk-reward becomes correspondingly tighter.

How does current WDAY implied volatility affect this butterfly?

WDAY ATM IV is at 74.92% with IV rank near 98.72%, which is elevated relative to its 1-year range. Premium-selling structures (covered call, cash-secured put, iron condor) generally look more attractive when IV rank is high; premium-buying structures (long call, long put, debit spreads) are more expensive in that regime.

WDAY Butterfly Strategy

WDAY (Workday, Inc.), in the Technology sector, (Software - Application industry), listed on NASDAQ.

Workday, Inc. provides enterprise cloud applications in the United States and internationally. The company's applications help its customers to plan, execute, analyze, and extend to other applications and environments, and to manage their business and operations. It offers a suite of financial management applications, which enable chief financial officers to maintain accounting information in the general ledger; manage financial processes; identify real-time financial, operational, and management insights; enhance financial consolidation; reduce time-to-close; promote internal control and auditability; and achieve consistency across finance operations. The company also provides cloud spend management solutions that helps organizations to streamline supplier selection and contracts, manage indirect spend, and build and execute sourcing events, such as requests for proposals; Human Capital Management (HCM) solution, a suite of human capital management applications that allows organizations to manage the entire employee lifecycle from recruitment to retirement, and enables HR teams to hire, onboard, pay, develop, reskill, and provide employee experiences; Workday applications for planning; and applications for analytics and reporting, including augmented analytics to surface insights to the line of business in simple-to-understand stories, machine learning to drive efficiency and automation, and benchmarks to compare performance against other companies. It serves professional and business services, financial services, healthcare, education, government, technology, media, retail, and hospitality industries. The company was formerly known as North Tahoe Power Tools, Inc. and changed its name to Workday, Inc. in July 2005.

WDAY (Workday, Inc.) trades in the Technology sector, specifically Software - Application, with a market capitalization of approximately $30.88B, a trailing P/E of 43.92, a beta of 1.04 versus the broader market, a 52-week range of 110.36-276, average daily share volume of 5.5M, a public-listing history dating back to 2012, approximately 20K full-time employees. These structural characteristics shape how WDAY stock options price implied volatility around earnings windows, capital events, and macro-driven sector rotations.

A beta of 1.04 places WDAY roughly in line with broader market moves, so the strategy payoff and realized volatility track the index-equivalent baseline. The trailing P/E of 43.92 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 WDAY?

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 WDAY snapshot

As of May 15, 2026, spot at $124.47, ATM IV 74.92%, IV rank 98.72%, expected move 21.48%. The butterfly on WDAY 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 butterfly structure on WDAY specifically: WDAY IV at 74.92% is rich versus its 1-year range, which makes a premium-buying WDAY butterfly relatively expensive in absolute-cost terms, with a market-implied 1-standard-deviation move of approximately 21.48% (roughly $26.74 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 WDAY expiries trade a higher absolute premium for lower per-day decay. Position sizing on WDAY should anchor to the underlying notional of $124.47 per share and to the trader's directional view on WDAY stock.

WDAY butterfly setup

The WDAY 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 WDAY near $124.47, the first option leg uses a $118.00 strike; additional legs (when the strategy has them) anchor to spot-relative offsets. Premiums come from the bid/ask midpoint on the listed WDAY 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 WDAY shares for the stock leg in covered calls and collars).

Action	Type	Strike / Basis	Premium (est)
Buy 1	Call	$118.00	$13.85
Sell 2	Call	$124.00	$10.80
Buy 1	Call	$131.00	$7.90

WDAY butterfly risk and reward

Net Premium / Debit: -$15.00
Max Profit (per contract): $569.95
Max Loss (per contract): -$115.00
Breakeven(s): $117.82, $129.85
Risk / Reward Ratio: 4.956

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.

WDAY butterfly payoff curve

Modeled P&L at expiration across a range of underlying prices for the butterfly on WDAY. 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%	-$15.00
$27.53	-77.9%	-$15.00
$55.05	-55.8%	-$15.00
$82.57	-33.7%	-$15.00
$110.09	-11.6%	-$15.00
$137.61	+10.6%	-$115.00
$165.13	+32.7%	-$115.00
$192.65	+54.8%	-$115.00
$220.17	+76.9%	-$115.00
$247.69	+99.0%	-$115.00

When traders use butterfly on WDAY

Butterflies on WDAY are pinning bets - traders use them when they expect WDAY 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.

WDAY thesis for this butterfly

The market-implied 1-standard-deviation range for WDAY extends from approximately $97.73 on the downside to $151.21 on the upside. A WDAY long call butterfly is a pinning play: it pays maximum at the middle strike if WDAY settles there at expiration, with the wing legs capping both the cost and the maximum loss to the net debit. Current WDAY IV rank near 98.72% sits in the upper third of its 1-year distribution, which historically reverts; this raises the bar for premium-buying structures and lowers it for premium-selling structures on WDAY at 74.92%. As a Technology name, WDAY options can move on sector-level news flow (peer earnings, regulatory updates, industry-specific macro data) in addition to WDAY-specific events.

WDAY 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. WDAY positions also carry Technology sector concentration risk; news flow inside the sector (peer earnings, regulatory shifts, supply-chain headlines) can move WDAY alongside the broader basket even when WDAY-specific fundamentals are unchanged. Always rebuild the position from current WDAY chain quotes before placing a trade.

Frequently asked questions

What is a butterfly on WDAY?: A butterfly on WDAY is the butterfly strategy applied to WDAY (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 WDAY stock trading near $124.47, the strikes shown on this page are snapped to the nearest listed WDAY chain strike and the premiums come straight from the end-of-day bid/ask midpoint.
How are WDAY 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 WDAY butterfly priced from the end-of-day chain at a 30-day expiry (ATM IV 74.92%), the computed maximum profit is $569.95 per contract and the computed maximum loss is -$115.00 per contract. Live intraday quotes will differ as the chain moves through the trading session.
What is the breakeven for a WDAY butterfly?: The breakeven for the WDAY butterfly priced on this page is roughly $117.82 and $129.85 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 WDAY market-implied 1-standard-deviation expected move is approximately 21.48%; if the move sits well outside the breakeven distance, the structure's risk-reward becomes correspondingly tighter.
When should you consider a butterfly on WDAY?: Butterflies on WDAY are pinning bets - traders use them when they expect WDAY 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 WDAY implied volatility affect this butterfly?: WDAY ATM IV is at 74.92% with IV rank near 98.72%, which is elevated relative to its 1-year range. Premium-selling structures (covered call, cash-secured put, iron condor) generally look more attractive when IV rank is high; premium-buying structures (long call, long put, debit spreads) are more expensive in that regime.