Intercontinental Exchange reported a record Q2 2026, driven by growth across its exchanges, data services, and mortgage technology segments. The company announced a definitive agreement to acquire Market Access for $5.7 billion, a strategic move to create a comprehensive global fixed income network by combining its retail/wealth distribution with Market Access's institutional liquidity and data. Management raised full-year guidance for recurring revenue growth, signaling confidence in the company's trajectory despite macroeconomic uncertainties. ICE reported record Q2 2026 revenue of $2.7bn, with a 24% increase in rates revenue on record open interest (up 50% in June).
Intercontinental Exchange reported a record Q2 2026, driven by growth across its exchanges, data services, and mortgage technology segments. The company announced a definitive agreement to acquire Market Access for $5.7 billion, a strategic move to create a comprehensive global fixed income network by combining its retail/wealth distribution with Market Access's institutional liquidity and data. Management raised full-year guidance for recurring revenue growth, signaling confidence in the company's trajectory despite macroeconomic uncertainties. ICE reported record Q2 2026 revenue of $2.7bn, with a 24% increase in rates revenue on record open interest (up 50% in June).
Intercontinental Exchange reported a record Q2 2026, driven by growth across its exchanges, data services, and mortgage technology segments. The company announced a definitive agreement to acquire Market Access for $5.7 billion, a strategic move to create a comprehensive global…
Management emphasized that AI is making their data more valuable, not less, with proprietary data delivered into clients' AI workflows via ICE MCP servers. They are embedding agentic AI into mortgage platforms to automate workflows and monetizing these AI tools, while investing…
The company accelerated its data center and hardware investments, pulling forward previously planned 2027 capex into 2026, now guiding full-year capex to approximately $850 million. This investment is to serve incremental demand from AI workflows and other growth initiatives.
Guidance tone
Management emphasized that AI is making their data more valuable, not less, with proprietary data delivered into clients' AI workflows via ICE MCP servers. They are embedding agentic AI into mortgage platforms to automate workflows and monetizing these AI tools, while investing in GPU capacity to support AI-driven demand.
Rates OI growth indicates durable structural demand. Management consistently highlighted record results, growth across segments, and strategic positioning, expressing confidence in future trajectory and the market access acquisition.
The company accelerated its data center and hardware investments, pulling forward previously planned 2027 capex into 2026, now guiding full-year capex to approximately $850 million. This investment is to serve incremental demand from AI workflows and other growth initiatives.
Management consistently highlighted record results, growth across segments, and strategic positioning, expressing confidence in future trajectory and the market access acquisition.
“We've elected to pull forward some of our originally planned 2027 CapEx into 2026. We now anticipate full year CapEx of approximately $850 million.”
“market access will bring us a growing treasury rates trading platform, which we plan to connect directly into our newly approved treasury clearing system, extending our credit and fixed income network into the interest rate markets.”
| Показатель | Период | Диапазон | Середина | Статус |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capex | FY2026 | $0.85B | $0.85B | RAISED |
| RevenueEXCHANGE_RECURRING | FY2026 | 7%–9% | 8% | RAISED |
| RevenueFIDS_RECURRING | FY2026 | 7%–8% | 7.5% | RAISED |
ICE points to Charles Schwab and other large wealth managers as key customers in the retail/wealth channel that the Market Access acquisition will expand and deepen.
“ICE Bonds was built through our combination of BondPoint and TMC, and it serves the trading desk of the largest wealth management firms in the country, names like Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Merrill Lynch, and Edward Jones”
… daily evaluated pricing on over 3 million securities. Our ICE indices serve as a benchmark for the global fixed income market with nearly $1 trillion in ETF assets benchmarked to them. In clearing, we operate ICE Clear Credit, the industry's leading CDS clearinghouse, and we run the ICE Global Network, connecting the financial community to our data, analytics, and execution. On the execution side, ICE Bonds was built through our combination of BondPoint and TMC, and it serves the trading desk of the largest wealth management firms in the country, names like Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Merrill Lynch, and Edward Jones, with deep liquidity and price discovery across municipal bonds, corporates, treasuries, and agencies. Having built strong distribution in the retail and wealth channel, we now see a clear opportunity to extend our reach into the institutional investor segment, where market access has a leading presence. By bringing these liquidity pools together, the logic is simple. We're building a global fixed income network. First, we connect the full spectrum of liquidity from retail to institution. Second, we make our clients more efficient, improving their experience …
AstraZeneca is cited as a major customer win for the NYSE, representing the largest transfer in its history and highlighting the listing business's competitive strength.
“with nearly $400 billion in market cap having switched to the exchange, including the largest transfer in NYSE history, AstraZeneca”
Fifth Third Bank is cited as a major customer win for the NYSE, representing the largest bank transfer in its history.
“and the largest bank transfer in exchange history, Fifth Third Bank”
… is carrying forward. and at the NYC, transaction revenue was a record, up 15% year over year. Record recurring revenue of $416 million grew 10%, with exchange data and connectivity services growing 12% as customers continue to embed our data into their workflows. Within listings, the NYC has led the industry in transfers year to date, with nearly $400 billion in market cap having switched to the exchange, including the largest transfer in NYC history, AstraZeneca, and the largest bank transfer in exchange history, Fifth Third Bank. As a result of this broad-based strength, we now expect exchange recurring revenues to grow in the high single-digit range for the full year 2026. Moving now to slide 12. Fixed income and data services net revenue was $645 million, up 8%, with record recurring revenue of $531 million, up 10%. Our CDS clearing business delivered the best non-role quarter in the franchise's history. growing despite difficult year-over-year comparisons. Within fixed income and data services, record revenues were aided by strong net new business and pricing and reference data, deepening consumption of our fixed income data sets, including early signs of engagement by …
ICE's initiative with Apollo in private credit is a strategic collaboration to bring private credit clients onto ICE's fixed income rails, indicating a deepening partnership and potential to make Apollo's private credit assets more liquid and data-rich. The deal to acquire Market Access is directly tied to accelerating this Apollo partnership.
“We have a plan to use the same rails to connect private credit clients who we're going to bring in via our initiative with Apollo.”
… and respects our proprietary rights so that each client model are not left to guess what permissions govern who can see what. We now offer a complete audit trail so that every output can be traced and trusted. In regulated markets, it is this governance and contextual foundation that turns a simple data connection into a resource that institutions can rely upon. The fixed income network that we're designing will not stop at public credit. We have a plan to use the same rails to connect private credit clients who we're going to bring in via our initiative with Apollo. So public and private credit will increasingly be accessible on one platform. ICE has spent its history turning fragmented analog markets into connected electronic networks, then growing and compounding these networks. This is how ICE has grown. It's not by chasing one market or one cycle, but by building infrastructure that compounds through every market environment. Market access will make our network broader and deeper and will advance a strategy that we followed from the start. This deal does not begin a new chapter for ICE. It deepens the story that we've been writing since our inception. I'd like to now …
ICE is accelerating its 2027 CapEx into 2026 as it builds out data center halls (Hall 6 likely already presold) to meet AI-driven demand. — This signals a physical supply-chain constraint in data center capacity; vendors that provide the infrastructure for ICE's accelerated data center buildout will see a tangible order pull-in, benefiting near-term revenue opportunities.
… between $4,190,000,000 and $4,230,000,000, with the increase driven by further crystallization of performance related compensation, our accelerated data center program, and a product development investment. all of which I would characterize as investments in future growth. CapEx totaled $262 million in the second quarter as we accelerated investments in hardware and our real estate footprint. Given our strong free cash flow generation, we've elected to pull forward some of our originally planned 2027 CapEx into 2026. We now anticipate full year CapEx of approximately $850 million. This acceleration reflects conviction in the growth trajectory ahead and our desire to be ready to serve incremental demand as it arrives. On capital return, in the second quarter, we repurchased $651 million of stock, including an incremental $300 million executed when our shares again further disconnected from the fundamentals. Including dividends, we returned $945 million to shareholders in this quarter and $1.8 billion in the first half, another record. Our leverage ended the quarter at 2.8 times within our target range. Turning to the segments starting on side 11. In exchanges, net revenue was …
ICE's own treasury clearing system (approved) is central to its strategy to extend its fixed income network, though it's not a lead player in the US. The plan is to tie Market Access's treasury rates platform into ICE's clearing system, aiming to scale its US rates footprint. — This validates a durable competitive push into the US rates clearing market, directly threatening CME's incumbency and its related treasury data and execution revenue streams.
… of fair value. Connecting these two pools should dramatically increase the probability that a buyer finds a seller, and this price discovery will benefit every market participant. We want to offer our clients a common set of rails. Whether a client moves upstream to institutional or downstream to retail, they will operate on the same connected infrastructure, creating real economies of scale. And market access will bring us a growing treasury rates trading platform, which we plan to connect directly into our newly approved treasury clearing system, extending our credit and fixed income network into the interest rate markets. Our Clear Treasury Futures franchise was our fastest growing product set in the last quarter, as Ben will discuss shortly. So we look forward to extending these capabilities. Please turn to slide seven. A single connected network does more than deepen liquidity. It will simplify how our clients operate, reduce what costs it takes them to do so over time. We plan to collapse a fragmented stack of execution venues, data vendors, and analytics providers into a single integrated workflow. Fewer connections, fewer reconciliations, fewer points of failure. The …