Nasdaq, Inc.

Second-quarter 2026 net revenue was $1.5 billion, up 15% year over year. Solutions revenue was $1.2 billion, up 17%. Operating expense was $641 million, up 10%, with operating margin of 57% and EBITDA margin of 60%, both up 2 percentage points. Net income was $605 million and diluted EPS was $1.07, up 25%; management said this was the first time quarterly EPS exceeded $1.00. ARR grew 12% year over year to $3.3 billion. By division, Capital Access Platforms revenue was $621 million, up 18%; Financial Technology revenue was $539 million, up 15%; and Market Services net revenue was $340 million, up 11%. For the full year, Nasdaq raised non-GAAP expense guidance to $2.530 billion-$2.570 billion from $2.485 billion-$2.545 billion and kept its 2026 non-GAAP tax rate guidance at 22.5%-24.5%.

Adena Friedman framed the quarter as evidence that Nasdaq’s “expand, evolve and transform” strategy is working across the business. She emphasized historic milestones in listings, index AUM, and market volumes, and said the company is positioned to benefit from AI adoption, market modernization, tokenization, and always-on trading. Her tone was confident and strategic, with a recurring theme that Nasdaq is helping shape the future market structure while building on recurring revenue and integrated platforms.

Sarah Youngwood focused on the financial leverage in the quarter: 15% net revenue growth, 17% solutions revenue growth, and 25% EPS growth on the back of operating discipline. She noted operating expense of $641 million, up 10%, and said the company is updating full-year non-GAAP expense guidance upward mainly due to higher employee compensation and IPO-related marketing expense. She also highlighted $477 million of free cash flow in the quarter, $2.2 billion over the last 12 months, a 97% conversion ratio, $530 million returned to shareholders in the quarter, and a gross leverage ratio of 2.6x after about $162 million of gross debt repayment.

Analysts pressed management on AI monetization, and Friedman said pricing will be handled product by product: some capabilities will be embedded into core products, while others, like Verafin and Surveillance features, will use a freemium-to-paid upsell model. Questions on Trade Management Services and Market Tech centered on whether growth was driven by new client demand, AI, or pricing; management said demand is mostly from connectivity, power, and trading activity, with a pricing increase also helping, but not primarily from GenAI. Analysts also asked about perpetuals, tokenized assets, Reg NMS, and 24/7 trading, and management framed these as medium-term opportunities that could expand Nasdaq’s technology and market infrastructure role, while noting that any overlap with current markets would be limited and that major architectural changes would take time.