Report Date: Thursday, July 23, 2026, before market open | Call: 2026Q2 Earnings Call
| Consensus EPS (non-GAAP) | ~$0.96–$0.98 (vs. $0.85 in Q2 2025) |
| Consensus Revenue | ~$1.45–$1.46B (vs. $1.3B in Q2 2025) |
| Stock price (as of 7/22/26) | ~$90.92 |
| Avg. analyst price target | ~$106–$107 |
| Consensus rating | Buy |
Wall Street is looking for another double-digit growth quarter: the consensus among 14 analysts calls for earnings of $0.98 per share on revenue of $1.46B, with the EPS estimate range spanning $0.92 to $1.01 and revenue estimates bracketing $1.44B to $1.48B. Separately, other trackers peg the number a touch lower — analysts forecast NDAQ to report an adjusted EPS of $0.96, a rise of 12.9% from $0.85 in the year-ago quarter, and note that the company has exceeded Wall Street's earnings estimates in the last four quarters. Whatever the exact number, the setup calls for continued high-teens/low-double-digit revenue growth and mid-teens-to-20%+ EPS growth, consistent with the trend of the last several quarters.
The stock has been volatile into the print — it round-tripped from roughly $92 in early June down to a low near $77 by June 29 amid a broad tech/AI-driven market sell-off and idiosyncratic concerns about tokenized-stock competition, before recovering to the low-$90s by mid-July.
Nasdaq's first quarter was described by management as one of the strongest starts to a year in company history. Nasdaq entered 2026 with strong momentum, and first quarter performance reflected one of the strongest starts to a year in the company's history, with the highest Q1 organic growth since 2021 across net revenue, solutions revenue and operating income, as well as the highest ever quarterly revenue growth in the Financial Technology division.
Key Q1 2026 metrics: net revenue of $1.4 billion, a 13% year-over-year increase; annualized recurring revenue (ARR) grew 12% year-over-year to $3.2 billion; expenses were $608 million, up 8%; operating income was $799 million, up 17%; and diluted EPS growth was 21%. By division, Capital Access Platforms generated 10% revenue growth and 7% ARR growth, Financial Technology delivered 18% revenue growth and 16% ARR growth, and Market Services delivered 10% net revenue growth.
This is the base investors will be comparing Q2 against — and several one-time/timing items flagged in Q1 (large Calypso upfront revenue recognition, M&A termination fees in Capital Markets Tech, elevated professional-services fees) are expected to moderate, so watch for normalization in Financial Technology's growth rate.
The IPO backdrop has clearly strengthened since Q1, when management noted an uneven IPO environment amid market volatility but strong issuer engagement, with companies in the pipeline continuing to prepare for market entry, and an encouraging environment for improving IPO activity entering the second quarter. That optimism was validated: Nasdaq announced the first half of 2026 marked the strongest start in U.S. exchange history, with $129.3 billion raised from new listings, driven by SpaceX's landmark listing, which raised $85.7 billion in the largest IPO of all time, along with Cerebras (largest semiconductor IPO ever), Quantinuum (largest pure-play quantum IPO ever) and Parabilis (largest biotech IPO ever). This should be a meaningful listings-revenue and data-revenue tailwind for Q2, along with sentiment support for the stock.
Index/ETP business: Q1 saw only modest net inflows amid March risk-off sentiment, but management called this "short-term tactical" and pointed to encouraging momentum in the second quarter, with $15 billion of net ETP inflows as of April 20 — investors will want an update on whether that momentum held through the June sell-off, especially given the sector-rotation dynamics already at play. Also watch for early commentary on the expanded Nasdaq-100 licensing relationships with BlackRock and State Street (alongside longtime partner Invesco), announced in Q1 to expand access to the Nasdaq-100 with pricing terms consistent with QQQ, and their initial contribution/timeline.
Financial Technology was the standout in Q1, with record revenue of $517 million, up 18%, and ARR growth of 16%, with ACV bookings up more than 50% year-over-year and 80% of bookings cloud-based. However, several drivers were flagged as non-recurring: a large Calypso on-prem upfront revenue item and Market Tech operator M&A termination fees together added 4 percentage points to Capital Markets Tech revenue growth, and management explicitly said the strong Q4 2025 Verafin professional-services bump would not repeat over the first half of 2026 based on implementation timing. On Verafin/enterprise AFC specifically, management guided that ARR benefits from a heavy slate of H2-2025 enterprise signings would start to flow in later in the year as implementations complete — Q2/Q3 commentary on implementation progress and Tier 1 pipeline conversion will be an important read on the medium-term ARR growth trajectory. Also watch AxiomSL cloud mix (already ~90% of ACV bookings) and any update on the FIS partnership and Agentic AI workforce expansion in Verafin.
Q1 delivered record net revenue of $317 million, up 10%, driven by record volumes in U.S. equity options and U.S. equities, though capture was pressured by mix shift toward lower-revenue order flow. Given elevated volatility through Q2 (June sell-off, tech/AI repricing), volumes were likely strong again, but investors should watch capture rates and index-options growth (which more than doubled y/y in Q1) as an offset to any mix-driven capture erosion.
Coming out of Q1, Nasdaq raised full-year non-GAAP expense guidance to a range of $2.485 billion to $2.545 billion, from $2.455 billion to $2.535 billion, given strong revenue performance, and flagged that expense growth would step up in Q2 versus Q1, driven in part by the timing of the annual compensation cycle — a factor worth watching against margin expectations this quarter. The company maintained its 2026 non-GAAP tax rate guidance of 22.5% to 24.5%.
Nasdaq heads into Q2 2026 with strong underlying momentum — record IPO/listings activity, an accelerating Financial Technology franchise, resilient Market Services volumes, and a shareholder-friendly capital allocation stance (dividend hike, elevated buybacks). The bar is high given four consecutive earnings beats and a Q1 that management itself called one of the strongest starts in company history. The main swing factors for the print and reaction are: (1) whether index/ETP inflows sustained their April rebound through the June volatility, (2) whether Financial Technology growth normalizes gracefully as one-time items roll off, and (3) any incremental color on tokenization/23-5 competitive positioning, which has been the primary source of stock-specific volatility over the past six weeks.