Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and Nasdaq both operate exchanges and sell services that extend well beyond trading. The clearest difference is how their portfolios are organized: ICE reports businesses spanning exchanges, fixed-income and data services, and U.S. mortgage technology; Nasdaq groups its operations into capital access platforms, financial technology, and market services. They overlap, but they are not simply interchangeable stock exchanges.
How do ICE and Nasdaq organize their businesses?
| Company | Reported segments | What the segments cover |
|---|---|---|
| Intercontinental Exchange | Exchanges; Fixed Income and Data Services; Mortgage Technology | Exchange and clearing activity, fixed-income execution and data services, and technology for U.S. residential mortgage workflows. ICE FY2025 Form 10-K |
| Nasdaq | Capital Access Platforms; Financial Technology; Market Services | Listings, data, indexes, workflow and insights offerings, financial technology, and services that include technology supplied to market operators. Nasdaq FY2025 Form 10-K |
The segment labels are not equivalent accounting categories, so they are useful for understanding strategic emphasis—not for making a clean, like-for-like revenue comparison.
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What does ICE do beyond running exchanges?
Exchanges across multiple asset classes
ICE’s Exchanges segment includes global futures, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and other securities exchange activity, listings, and directly related data and connectivity services. Its venues included 13 regulated exchanges and six clearing houses in the company’s 2025 filing; ICE Clear Credit is reported within Fixed Income and Data Services even though it is included in that venue and clearing-house description. ICE FY2025 Form 10-K
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Fixed-income execution, clearing and data
ICE’s Fixed Income and Data Services segment covers fixed-income execution, credit default swap (CDS) clearing, data and analytics, and multi-asset data and network services. The breadth matters: ICE participates in workflows that support trading, clearing and pricing information, not just exchange transactions.
U.S. mortgage technology
ICE also reports Mortgage Technology, focused on digital workflow technology for the U.S. residential mortgage process. This business extends the company into software and services used in mortgage workflows, a substantial distinction from the narrower image of an exchange operator.
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What does Nasdaq emphasize?
Capital access
Nasdaq’s Capital Access Platforms segment includes data and listing services, indexes, and workflow and insights offerings. This puts companies’ access to public markets and related information among the central elements of Nasdaq’s business.
Financial and market technology
Nasdaq also reports Financial Technology and Market Services. Its company description includes technology supplied to market operators, alongside services connected with financial markets. The available segment descriptions support this broad characterization, but do not establish a more detailed, directly comparable breakdown against ICE’s offerings.
How do the businesses make money, and how large are the reported figures?
Both companies combine exchange-related activity with services such as data, software, listings or technology. ICE explicitly describes a mix of transaction revenues and recurring data and listings revenues in Exchanges; recurring data offerings also appear in Fixed Income and Data Services. That means ICE’s reported portfolio spans revenue associated with market activity as well as services sold beyond a single transaction.
For fiscal 2025, ICE reported $5.4 billion in Exchanges revenue less transaction-based expenses, equal to 55% of its consolidated revenue less transaction-based expenses. It reported $2.4 billion in Fixed Income and Data Services revenue. Separately, its 2025 shareholder letter reported $9.9 billion in consolidated net revenue. These are company-reported figures, and the accounting measures differ: “revenue less transaction-based expenses” is not interchangeable with “net revenue.” ICE FY2025 Form 10-K ICE 2025 shareholder letter
These ICE figures do not by themselves show whether ICE or Nasdaq is larger. A fair numerical comparison would require Nasdaq figures for the same fiscal period and measures aligned to the companies’ different segment and revenue definitions.
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- Portfolio composition: ICE explicitly combines exchanges, fixed-income execution, clearing and data, and U.S. mortgage workflow technology. Nasdaq frames its portfolio around capital access, financial technology and market services.
- Market and client workflows: ICE’s disclosed activities include energy, financial and agricultural futures, securities, fixed income and mortgage workflows. Nasdaq’s description foregrounds listings, market data, financial technology and technology for market operators.
- Revenue mix: ICE describes both transaction-linked and recurring data and listings revenues. The segment labels alone do not establish a directly comparable mix for Nasdaq.
- Interpretation: Both are diversified market-infrastructure companies with areas of overlap. Neither should be understood only as the operator of a familiar stock exchange.
ICE CEO Jeff Sprecher described ICE’s performance in the 2025 shareholder letter as driven by its diversified “all-weather” business model. That is management’s characterization, not an independent assessment of the business or a comparison with Nasdaq. ICE 2025 shareholder letter
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