ACGL Cash-Secured Put Strategy
ACGL (Arch Capital Group Ltd.), in the Financial Services sector, (Insurance - Diversified industry), listed on NASDAQ.
Arch Capital Group Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides insurance, reinsurance, and mortgage insurance products in the United States, Canada, Bermuda, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia. The company operates through three segments: Insurance, Reinsurance, and Mortgage. The Insurance segment offers commercial automobile; commercial multiperil; financial and professional line liability; admitted, excess, and surplus casualty lines; property and short-tail specialty; workers compensation; and casualty insurance. Its Reinsurance segment provides reinsurance products for casualty; marine and aviation; property catastrophe; property excluding property catastrophe; and other specialty products. The Mortgage segment offers U.S. primary mortgage insurance business written predominantly on loans sold to the Federal National Mortgage Association and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation; reinsurance and underwriting services related to the U.S. credit-risk transfer business and other U.S. mortgage reinsurance transactions; and international mortgage insurance and reinsurance business covering loans. It markets its products through a group of licensed independent retail and wholesale brokers.
ACGL (Arch Capital Group Ltd.) trades in the Financial Services sector, specifically Insurance - Diversified, with a market capitalization of approximately $34.49B, a trailing P/E of 7.22, a beta of 0.29 versus the broader market, a 52-week range of 82.45-107.09, average daily share volume of 2.2M, a public-listing history dating back to 1995, approximately 8K full-time employees. These structural characteristics shape how ACGL stock options price implied volatility around earnings windows, capital events, and macro-driven sector rotations.
A beta of 0.29 indicates ACGL has historically moved less than the broader market, dampening realized volatility and producing tighter expected-move bands per unit of dollar exposure. The trailing P/E of 7.22 is on the value side, where IV often compresses outside event windows because forward growth expectations are already discounted into the share price. ACGL pays a dividend, which adjusts put-call parity and shifts the ex-dividend pricing across the listed chain.
What is a cash-secured put on ACGL?
A cash-secured put sells an out-of-the-money put while holding cash equal to the strike-times-100 obligation, keeping the premium when the underlying stays above the strike.
ACGL snapshot
As of August 14, 2026, spot at $98.82, ATM IV 19.00%, IV rank 1.92%, expected move 5.45%. The cash-secured put on ACGL below is built from the August 14, 2026 end-of-day chain, with strikes snapped to listed contracts and premiums pulled from the bid/ask midpoint at a 217-day expiry.
Why this cash-secured put structure on ACGL specifically: ACGL IV at 19.00% is on the cheap side of its 1-year range, which means a premium-selling ACGL cash-secured put collects less credit per unit of strike-width risk, with a market-implied 1-standard-deviation move of approximately 5.45% (roughly $5.38 on the underlying). The 217-day window matched to the front-month expiry keeps theta exposure bounded while still capturing the post-snapshot move; longer-dated ACGL expiries trade a higher absolute premium for lower per-day decay. Position sizing on ACGL should anchor to the underlying notional of $98.82 per share and to the trader's directional view on ACGL stock.
ACGL cash-secured put setup
The ACGL cash-secured put below is built from the August 14, 2026 end-of-day chain, with each option leg priced at the bid/ask midpoint of its listed strike. With ACGL at $98.82 on that close, the first option leg uses a $95.00 strike; additional legs (when the strategy has them) anchor to spot-relative offsets. Premiums come from the bid/ask midpoint on the listed ACGL chain at a 217-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 ACGL shares for the stock leg in covered calls and collars).
| Action | Type | Strike / Basis | Premium (est) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sell 1 | Put | $95.00 | $4.38 |
ACGL cash-secured put risk and reward
- Net Premium / Debit
- +$437.50
- Max Profit (per contract)
- $437.50
- Max Loss (per contract)
- -$9,061.50
- Breakeven(s)
- $90.63
- Risk / Reward Ratio
- 0.048
Max profit equals premium times 100; max loss equals strike minus premium times 100 (at zero, assuming assignment). Breakeven is strike minus premium.
ACGL cash-secured put payoff curve
Modeled P&L at expiration across a range of underlying prices for the cash-secured put on ACGL. 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% | -$9,061.50 |
| $21.86 | -77.9% | -$6,876.65 |
| $43.71 | -55.8% | -$4,691.79 |
| $65.56 | -33.7% | -$2,506.94 |
| $87.40 | -11.6% | -$322.08 |
| $109.25 | +10.6% | +$437.50 |
| $131.10 | +32.7% | +$437.50 |
| $152.95 | +54.8% | +$437.50 |
| $174.80 | +76.9% | +$437.50 |
| $196.65 | +99.0% | +$437.50 |
When traders use cash-secured put on ACGL
Cash-secured puts on ACGL earn premium while a trader waits to acquire ACGL stock at a target strike below the current quote; most attractive when IV is rich and the trader is comfortable owning ACGL.
ACGL thesis for this cash-secured put
The market-implied 1-standard-deviation range for ACGL extends from approximately $93.44 on the downside to $104.20 on the upside. A ACGL cash-secured put lets a trader earn premium while waiting to acquire ACGL at the strike price; the strategy is most attractive when the trader is comfortable holding the underlying at that level and IV is rich enough to compensate for the assignment risk. Current ACGL IV rank near 1.92% 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 ACGL at 19.00%. As a Financial Services name, ACGL options can move on sector-level news flow (peer earnings, regulatory updates, industry-specific macro data) in addition to ACGL-specific events.
ACGL cash-secured put positions are structurally neutral to slightly bullish; 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. ACGL positions also carry Financial Services sector concentration risk; news flow inside the sector (peer earnings, regulatory shifts, supply-chain headlines) can move ACGL alongside the broader basket even when ACGL-specific fundamentals are unchanged. Short-premium structures like a cash-secured put on ACGL carry tail risk when realized volatility exceeds the implied move; review historical ACGL earnings reactions and macro stress periods before sizing. Always rebuild the position from current ACGL chain quotes before placing a trade.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a cash-secured put on ACGL?
- A cash-secured put on ACGL is the cash-secured put strategy applied to ACGL (stock). The strategy is structurally neutral to slightly bullish: A cash-secured put sells an out-of-the-money put while holding cash equal to the strike-times-100 obligation, keeping the premium when the underlying stays above the strike. With ACGL stock at $98.82 on the August 14, 2026 close, the strikes shown on this page are snapped to the nearest listed ACGL chain strike and the premiums come straight from that session's bid/ask midpoint.
- How are ACGL cash-secured put max profit and max loss calculated?
- Max profit equals premium times 100; max loss equals strike minus premium times 100 (at zero, assuming assignment). Breakeven is strike minus premium. For the ACGL cash-secured put priced from the August 14, 2026 end-of-day chain at a 30-day expiry (ATM IV 19.00%), the computed maximum profit is $437.50 per contract and the computed maximum loss is -$9,061.50 per contract. Live intraday quotes will differ as the chain moves through the trading session.
- What is the breakeven for a ACGL cash-secured put?
- The breakeven for the ACGL cash-secured put priced on this page is roughly $90.63 at expiration, derived from the August 14, 2026 end-of-day chain's premiums. Breakeven is the underlying price at which the strategy's P&L crosses zero ignoring transaction costs and assignment risk. The ACGL market-implied 1-standard-deviation expected move in the same options snapshot is approximately 5.45%; if the move sits well outside the breakeven distance, the structure's risk-reward becomes correspondingly tighter.
- When should you consider a cash-secured put on ACGL?
- Cash-secured puts on ACGL earn premium while a trader waits to acquire ACGL stock at a target strike below the current quote; most attractive when IV is rich and the trader is comfortable owning ACGL.
- How does current ACGL implied volatility affect this cash-secured put?
- ACGL ATM IV is at 19.00% with IV rank near 1.92%, 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.