Hide Not Slide

Good question. Pre-early 2000s, exchanges were owned by their largest customers (banks, brokers, big traders). When exchanges demutualized & became public companies from 2002 - 2006ish, they now needed to satisfy public shareholders with consistent growth.

This pressure made the industry start to look for revenue streams that analysts could forecast & value better (stable, consistent, recurring in nature). Now exchanges with exposure to indices & other data services are rewarded with higher multiples as a result.

So similar to $V, $MA one-time demutualization plays? Who are the key players shaping that landscape? How do you weigh importance of the data business vs. attractiveness of the markets they're in?

There are different ways to think about both pieces (data & transaction revenue). Within data, products that are connected to secular trends with long runways get more love (ie ESG data, passive index products) & ones with limited TAM growth get shunned (ie equity market data).

On the transaction side, exchanges have exposure to different markets & their performance will mirror activity in those markets. For example, $CME has been outperforming recently bc their #1 product is interest rates, which see higher volumes when inflation is in focus.

ICE is interesting with its breadth of products. I read that CEO Jeffrey Sprecher once bid for Ebay. What do you make of him and his acquisition strategy?

Sprecher is arguably the industry's most successful deal maker. He turned a small power exchange into a global behemoth largely via M&A, whether it be futures, the NYSE, market data or mortgages. His deals have fit into two buckets: analog-to-digital conversion & platforms.