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Nasdaq (NDAQ) Reports Strong Volumes, Mixed RPC for 4Q18

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Nasdaq, Inc. (NDAQ - Free Report) reported solid volumes for fourth-quarter 2018. While U.S. equity options volume increased 10.8% year over year to 482 million contracts, volume of European options and futures registered 22.6 million contracts, up 14.1% year over year.

Though revenues per contract for U.S. equity options improved 15.4% year over year to 15 cents, the same for European options and futures deceased 12.5% to 49 cents.

Under its cash equities, Nasdaq’s U.S. matched equity volume in the fourth quarter grossed 108.3 billion shares, up 48.9% from the prior-year quarter. European equity volume decreased 7.6% year over year to $220 billion. Again, U.S. fixed income volume traded declined 13.26% year over year to $3.5 trillion, whereas the European fixed income volume was 9.4 million contracts, up 13.3% year over year.

In the fourth quarter, there were 3,685 listed companies on Nasdaq compared with 3,560 in the year-ago period. Total listings grew 3.7% over the year-earlier quarter to 4,059.

Nasdaq continues to witness growth from its index and analytics businesses, followed by moderate growth in its exchange data products across U.S. and Nordic equities, options, and fixed income businesses. The company is ramping up its non-transaction revenue base, which includes market technology, listing and information revenues. It is also expanding technology and analytics offering. Nasdaq remains focussed on its core special marketplace platform businesses but intends to lower capital resources for investment in business that does not offer considerable growth for the company.

Shares of Nasdaq lost nearly 5% during the fourth quarter of 2018 against the industry's increase of 5.9%.

 



The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings in the fourth quarter is pegged at $1.20, reflecting 14.3% year-over-year rise. The company is set to report fourth-quarter 2018 earnings on Jan 30, before the market opens.

Our proven model does not conclusively show that the company is likely to beat estimates in the to-be-reported quarter. This is because of the stock’s Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) and an Earnings ESP of 0.00%.

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Concurrently, Nasdaq reported mixed December volumes. U.S. equity options volume expanded 19.7% year over year to 146 million contracts. However, European options and futures volume was 6.4 million contracts, declining 1.5% year over year.

Recently, securities exchanges such as Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (CBOE - Free Report) , CME Group Inc. (CME - Free Report) and Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (ICE - Free Report) posted their volumes. Cboe Global’s ADV of 8.2 million contracts for 2018 increased 13.3% year over year, with each business segment recording growth. While CME Group’s fourth-quarter ADV of 19.2 million contracts per day grew 18% year over year, Intercontinental Exchange’s ADV improved 20% year over year.

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