AXS Cash-Secured Put 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 cash-secured put on AXS?
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.
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 cash-secured put 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 cash-secured put structure on AXS specifically: AXS IV at 25.40% is on the cheap side of its 1-year range, which means a premium-selling AXS cash-secured put collects less credit per unit of strike-width risk, 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 cash-secured put setup
The AXS cash-secured put 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) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sell 1 | Put | $95.00 | $1.48 |
AXS cash-secured put risk and reward
- Net Premium / Debit
- +$147.50
- Max Profit (per contract)
- $147.50
- Max Loss (per contract)
- -$9,351.50
- Breakeven(s)
- $93.53
- Risk / Reward Ratio
- 0.016
Max profit equals premium times 100; max loss equals strike minus premium times 100 (at zero, assuming assignment). Breakeven is strike minus premium.
AXS cash-secured put payoff curve
Modeled P&L at expiration across a range of underlying prices for the cash-secured put 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% | -$9,351.50 |
| $21.92 | -77.9% | -$7,160.23 |
| $43.84 | -55.8% | -$4,968.97 |
| $65.75 | -33.7% | -$2,777.70 |
| $87.66 | -11.6% | -$586.43 |
| $109.57 | +10.6% | +$147.50 |
| $131.49 | +32.7% | +$147.50 |
| $153.40 | +54.8% | +$147.50 |
| $175.31 | +76.9% | +$147.50 |
| $197.22 | +99.0% | +$147.50 |
When traders use cash-secured put on AXS
Cash-secured puts on AXS earn premium while a trader waits to acquire AXS stock at a target strike below the current quote; most attractive when IV is rich and the trader is comfortable owning AXS.
AXS thesis for this cash-secured put
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 cash-secured put lets a trader earn premium while waiting to acquire AXS 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 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 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. 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. Short-premium structures like a cash-secured put on AXS carry tail risk when realized volatility exceeds the implied move; review historical AXS earnings reactions and macro stress periods before sizing. Always rebuild the position from current AXS chain quotes before placing a trade.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a cash-secured put on AXS?
- A cash-secured put on AXS is the cash-secured put strategy applied to AXS (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 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 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 AXS cash-secured put priced from the end-of-day chain at a 30-day expiry (ATM IV 25.40%), the computed maximum profit is $147.50 per contract and the computed maximum loss is -$9,351.50 per contract. Live intraday quotes will differ as the chain moves through the trading session.
- What is the breakeven for a AXS cash-secured put?
- The breakeven for the AXS cash-secured put priced on this page is roughly $93.53 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 cash-secured put on AXS?
- Cash-secured puts on AXS earn premium while a trader waits to acquire AXS stock at a target strike below the current quote; most attractive when IV is rich and the trader is comfortable owning AXS.
- How does current AXS implied volatility affect this cash-secured put?
- 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.