AXIS Capital Heads Into Print With Bulls Holding the Upper Hand

AXS reports second-quarter results on July 29 with the options market signalling unusual confidence rather than caution — a setup that stands out against the usual pre-earnings defensiveness.

Options positioning is about as bullish as it gets heading into the print. The put/call ratio has collapsed to 0.14, well below its 20-day average of 0.17 and close to the lowest reading of the past year (the 52-week low is 0.07). That extreme call-side skew means options traders are not hedging — they are leaning into upside. The stock has given them reason to feel comfortable: AXS has gained roughly 10% over the past month to $119.27, adding another 4% in the past week alone, outpacing close peers ACGL (+2.0% on the week), CB (+1.8%), and THG (+2.4%).

The analyst community has been pulling targets higher ahead of the release, reinforcing the bullish tilt. Wells Fargo lifted its target from $119 to $134, Mizuho moved from $137 to $142, and UBS and KBW both nudged targets to $131 — all within the past three weeks and all maintaining positive ratings. The consensus mean target of $127 implies roughly 6% further upside from current levels, with Mizuho's $142 marking the high end of the range. Bulls point to mid-teens ROE improvement, disciplined underwriting, and high-single-digit gross written premium growth in 2024 as evidence the business is executing well. Bears counter with a less comfortable picture: core loss ratios are expected to deteriorate in 2026/27, casualty and professional liability premium volumes face headwinds, and the sharp reduction in Property Maximum Loss exposure — from nearly $1.5 billion in 2018 to roughly $200 million now — raises questions about whether the de-risking has gone too far.

Short interest is not part of this story in any meaningful way. Shorts amount to just 2.6% of the free float, down nearly 2% on the week. Borrow availability is extraordinarily loose — over 7,000% of current short interest is available to lend, meaning the lending market is essentially unrestricted. The ORTEX short score of 33.8 confirms there is no short-side pressure building ahead of the number.

The print therefore becomes a test of whether AXS can justify a stock that has re-rated sharply higher — and whether the underlying combined ratio and premium trends confirm the Street's increasingly constructive view, or give the bears the deterioration in core margins they have been anticipating.