As you can see in the below chart, The Hershey Company has been on a months-long decline from the $230s to its recent 52-week low near $155 less than a month ago. According to my research, much of this decline has been due to high cocoa prices. Yet despite price increases, Hershey’s products remain in demand. As someone recently wrote, people quit a lot of things, but they don’t usually quit chocolate for long.
Hershey has paid dividends for 36 consecutive years, with a dividend safety grade of A, according to Seeking Alpha. Hershey expects to announce earnings on October 19th. Earnings are expected to be still relatively good despite increased input costs.
Also, options premiums are relatively high, as usually happens crossing earnings. Of course, this is due to additional volatility after an earnings announcement, which could cause the price to dip further. But if we were to be assigned, we would be buying in at the lowest price since May of 2025. This would definitely meet our goal of buying solid companies when they are on deep sale.
| Option Type | Short Put (STO) |
| Date of Sale | 10/19/2026 |
| Option Sold | -HSY261127P150 |
| Expiration Date | 11/27/2026 |
| Days to Expiration | 39 |
| Number Sold | 1 |
| Premium per Contract | $129.00 |
| Total Premium Received | $129.00 |
| Potential Liability/Cash Put Reserve | $15,000.00 |
| Company Ticker | HSY |
| Stock Price at time of Put sale | $167.17 |
| Strike Price | $150.00 |
| Cost per Share if Assigned | $148.71 |
| Discount to Current Price If Assigned | 11.04% |
| Annual Dividend | $5.808 |
| Dividend Yield at Current Price | 3.47% |
| Dividend Yield on Cost if Assigned | 3.91% |
| Net ROI on Reserve If Not Assigned | 0.77% |
| Annualized ROI on Reserve If Not Assigned | 7.22% |