AXS Butterfly Strategy
AXS (AXIS Capital Holdings Limited), in the Financial Services sector, (Insurance - Property & Casualty industry), listed on NYSE.
AXIS Capital Holdings Limited, through its subsidiaries, provides various specialty insurance and reinsurance products worldwide. It operates through two segments, Insurance and Reinsurance. The Insurance segment offers property insurance products for commercial buildings, residential premises, construction projects, and onshore energy installations; marine insurance products covering offshore energy, cargo, liability, recreational marine, fine art, specie, and hull war; and terrorism, aviation, credit and political risk, and liability insurance products. It also provides professional insurance products that cover directors' and officers' liability, errors and omissions liability, employment practices liability, fiduciary liability, crime, professional indemnity, cyber and privacy, medical malpractice, and other financial insurance related coverages for commercial enterprises, financial institutions, not-for-profit organizations, and other professional service providers. In addition, this segment offers accidental death, travel, and specialty health products for employer and affinity groups. The Reinsurance segment offers reinsurance products to insurance companies, including catastrophe reinsurance products; property reinsurance products covering property damage and related losses resulting from natural and man-made perils; professional lines; credit and surety; and motor liability products.
AXS (AXIS Capital Holdings Limited) trades in the Financial Services sector, specifically Insurance - Property & Casualty, with a market capitalization of approximately $7.17B, a trailing P/E of 6.74, a beta of 0.55 versus the broader market, a 52-week range of 88.07-110.34, average daily share volume of 579K, a public-listing history dating back to 2003, approximately 2K full-time employees. These structural characteristics shape how AXS stock options price implied volatility around earnings windows, capital events, and macro-driven sector rotations.
A beta of 0.55 indicates AXS 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 6.74 is on the value side, where IV often compresses outside event windows because forward growth expectations are already discounted into the share price. AXS pays a dividend, which adjusts put-call parity and shifts the ex-dividend pricing across the listed chain.
What is a butterfly on AXS?
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 AXS snapshot
As of May 15, 2026, spot at $99.11, ATM IV 25.40%, IV rank 2.31%, expected move 7.28%. The butterfly on AXS 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 butterfly structure on AXS specifically: AXS IV at 25.40% is on the cheap side of its 1-year range, which favors premium-buying structures like a AXS butterfly, with a market-implied 1-standard-deviation move of approximately 7.28% (roughly $7.22 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 AXS expiries trade a higher absolute premium for lower per-day decay. Position sizing on AXS should anchor to the underlying notional of $99.11 per share and to the trader's directional view on AXS stock.
AXS butterfly setup
The AXS 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 AXS near $99.11, 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 AXS 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 AXS shares for the stock leg in covered calls and collars).
| Action | Type | Strike / Basis | Premium (est) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buy 1 | Call | $95.00 | $6.05 |
| Sell 2 | Call | $100.00 | $2.68 |
| Buy 1 | Call | $105.00 | $1.58 |
AXS butterfly risk and reward
- Net Premium / Debit
- -$227.50
- Max Profit (per contract)
- $233.80
- Max Loss (per contract)
- -$227.50
- Breakeven(s)
- $97.28, $102.73
- Risk / Reward Ratio
- 1.028
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.
AXS butterfly payoff curve
Modeled P&L at expiration across a range of underlying prices for the butterfly on AXS. 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% | -$227.50 |
| $21.92 | -77.9% | -$227.50 |
| $43.84 | -55.8% | -$227.50 |
| $65.75 | -33.7% | -$227.50 |
| $87.66 | -11.6% | -$227.50 |
| $109.57 | +10.6% | -$227.50 |
| $131.49 | +32.7% | -$227.50 |
| $153.40 | +54.8% | -$227.50 |
| $175.31 | +76.9% | -$227.50 |
| $197.22 | +99.0% | -$227.50 |
When traders use butterfly on AXS
Butterflies on AXS are pinning bets - traders use them when they expect AXS 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.
AXS thesis for this butterfly
The market-implied 1-standard-deviation range for AXS extends from approximately $91.89 on the downside to $106.33 on the upside. A AXS long call butterfly is a pinning play: it pays maximum at the middle strike if AXS settles there at expiration, with the wing legs capping both the cost and the maximum loss to the net debit. Current AXS IV rank near 2.31% 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 AXS at 25.40%. As a Financial Services name, AXS options can move on sector-level news flow (peer earnings, regulatory updates, industry-specific macro data) in addition to AXS-specific events.
AXS 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. AXS positions also carry Financial Services sector concentration risk; news flow inside the sector (peer earnings, regulatory shifts, supply-chain headlines) can move AXS alongside the broader basket even when AXS-specific fundamentals are unchanged. Always rebuild the position from current AXS chain quotes before placing a trade.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a butterfly on AXS?
- A butterfly on AXS is the butterfly strategy applied to AXS (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 AXS stock trading near $99.11, the strikes shown on this page are snapped to the nearest listed AXS chain strike and the premiums come straight from the end-of-day bid/ask midpoint.
- How are AXS 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 AXS butterfly priced from the end-of-day chain at a 30-day expiry (ATM IV 25.40%), the computed maximum profit is $233.80 per contract and the computed maximum loss is -$227.50 per contract. Live intraday quotes will differ as the chain moves through the trading session.
- What is the breakeven for a AXS butterfly?
- The breakeven for the AXS butterfly priced on this page is roughly $97.28 and $102.73 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 AXS market-implied 1-standard-deviation expected move is approximately 7.28%; if the move sits well outside the breakeven distance, the structure's risk-reward becomes correspondingly tighter.
- When should you consider a butterfly on AXS?
- Butterflies on AXS are pinning bets - traders use them when they expect AXS 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 AXS implied volatility affect this butterfly?
- AXS ATM IV is at 25.40% with IV rank near 2.31%, 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.