Hide Not Slide

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.

The Ebay rumor fits into the idea of an exchange's "platform" - once the core infrastructure is built, adding new things to the platform is easier & comes w/synergies. Ebay is a marketplace platform just like ICE, which is where the idea of a combination might've come from.

The most recent example of an "analog-to-digital" acquisition strategy was Ellie Mae. ICE argues the mortgage origination process is outdated & inefficient, and there's money to be made in converting it into an electronic business.

Awesome, I look forward to reading. There's a perception that exchanges can serve as inflation hedges. How do you think about that?

In my mind, exchanges have a lot of pricing power & largely fixed costs, making them a perfect inflation play. Many exchanges also have interest rate businesses which see higher trading volumes if rates rise. Others have talked about this on FinTwit as well (@HorizonKinetics)

One thing to keep in mind is the impact of inflation on the market data side of the industry. Data businesses gain a premium now in a ZIRP low growth environment, but I don't think they'll be as loved when they're consistently growing +4-5% in a world with 4% inflation.

Got it. Is there a company that you feel is really misunderstood by the market?