Enact Holdings, Inc. (ACT) Stock Price & How to Invest

Enact Holdings (Nasdaq: ACT) sells private mortgage insurance. When a borrower puts down less than 20% on a conventional loan sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, the GSEs require credit enhancement, and Enact is one of a handful of companies that provides it. The economics are simple to describe and slow to unwind: Enact writes a policy, collects a recurring premium for as long as the loan stays outstanding, and pays a claim only if the borrower defaults and the foreclosure proceeds fall short. That produces a large, slow-moving book. Primary insurance in force was about $274B as of the second quarter of 2026, up roughly 2% year over year, and new insurance written in the quarter was about $15.2B. Revenue is net premiums earned plus investment income on the reserve portfolio, and because the cost base is thin, the operating margin runs above 70%.

The recent results reflect a benign credit environment more than a growth story. Second-quarter 2026 revenue was about $317M with net income near $175M, or about $1.25 per diluted share, and return on equity around 13%. Persistency has stayed high because borrowers holding low-rate mortgages have little reason to refinance, which keeps premium-paying policies on the books longer than the historical norm. Capital is abundant: PMIERs sufficiency was roughly 161%, about $1.9B above the required level, and management has pointed to $550M to $600M of total capital return for full-year 2026 through buybacks and the $0.24 quarterly dividend. Share count is down roughly 6% year over year. One structural feature dominates the shareholder register: Genworth Financial still owns about 81% of Enact, so the public float is small and Genworth's own capital needs influence how much cash Enact sends out.

Enact is a concentrated bet on US mortgage credit, with essentially one product, one country and one collateral type. A housing downturn combined with rising unemployment would raise delinquencies, turn favorable reserve development into reserve strengthening, and hit earnings faster than premiums could reprice. Policy risk is real and recurring: FHFA capital rules (PMIERs), GSE pricing through loan-level adjustments, and FHA premium changes can each shift the economics of private mortgage insurance without any change in Enact's own execution, since FHA is a direct substitute for the same borrower. Competition among the six private mortgage insurers runs through proprietary risk-based pricing engines that are not publicly disclosed, so price competition is difficult for outside investors to observe until it shows up in returns. Genworth's roughly 81% ownership means the public float is limited, minority holders have little influence, and Enact's capital return policy is shaped by a parent with its own funding needs including its CareScout long-term care initiatives. As of August 2026 no securities-fraud class action against Enact was identified in public filings or court dockets.

5 analysts publish price targets on ACT, averaging $49.60 against a $48.96 price as of August 2026, or +1.3%. The published targets run from $48.00 to $53.00, a narrow spread, and the ratings split 1 buy, 4 hold, 0 sell. Over the last six months there have been 4 raises and 0 cuts among the published actions. A price target is what an analyst published on a date, not a prediction, and sell-side ratings skew positive across the whole market.

Read the full ACT forecast and price target for the target table, the recent rating actions by firm, and how the consensus has shifted.

We give no verdict on Enact Holdings, Inc.. Both cases are real, which is why the question is contested at all, so here is the strongest version of each.

The case for buying. Insurance in force compounding on high persistency. Earned premium is a function of how much insurance stays on the books, not how much is written in any single quarter. The most optimistic published target, $53.00, assumes this works close to its best case.

The case against. Enact is a concentrated bet on US mortgage credit, with essentially one product, one country and one collateral type. The most pessimistic target, $48.00, is roughly what ACT is worth if this bites instead.

Read the full bull and bear case on ACT, including what would have to change to break either one. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see Enact Holdings, Inc.'s investor relations page or your broker.

• Market cap: ~$6.7B
• Revenue (TTM): ~$1.25B
• Net income (TTM): ~$683M
• P/E (trailing / forward): ~10.3x / ~9.9x
• Price to book: ~1.25x (book value ~$39 per share)
• Dividend yield: ~2.0% (~$0.96 annualized, ~20% payout)

The multiple is typical of the mortgage insurance group rather than a company-specific discount: the market generally capitalizes these earnings at a low double-digit P/E and around book value because reported profits include reserve releases that are not assumed to repeat through a credit cycle. Price to book near 1.25x with mid-teens ROE implies the market expects returns to normalize lower over time. Because roughly 81% of the shares sit with Genworth, the free float is thin, which affects liquidity and the practical relevance of index-driven flows.

Other names that sit close to ACT: same theme, named as a direct competitor, or held beside it in the same funds. Each entry says which. Worth a look if you are thinking about diversification within a thesis rather than concentration on one ticker.

There are three common ways to get ACT exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it, which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic portfolio, so ACT sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.

Walnut takes the portfolio route. Describe a thesis where ACT fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.

New to this? Start with how to invest in stocks, see how to analyze a stock with AI, or compare the best AI stock analyzers.

Enact is a profitable, capital-returning mortgage insurer whose earnings are unusually tied to one thing: whether US borrowers keep paying their mortgages.

Whether ACT is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is ACT a buy or a sell?, and where the stock could go from here in the ACT stock forecast.

For income investors, whether ACT pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does ACT pay a dividend? And to weigh ACT against a peer, read the full side-by-side comparisons: ACT vs MTG and ACT vs ESNT.