Nasdaq, Inc. NDAQ Moat

Key data

The moat

Three businesses and the moats run in opposite directions.

The listings franchise is a brand and a network. A technology company choosing where to list is buying an identity as much as a venue, and the peer group already there is the product. Forty-six consecutive quarters of winning 86% of eligible listings is what that looks like when it works, and twenty companies moved across from the rival exchange in 2025.

The index and data business alongside it is a switching cost: a fund benchmarked to a Nasdaq index cannot change without a prospectus amendment. The software business, bought for $10.5B, sells regulatory reporting and financial crime screening to banks that cannot easily replace it.

The matching engine is not a moat at all. It competes on rebates against a dozen venues.

Widening or narrowing

The two moated businesses compound and the commodity one does not.

Capital Access Platforms rose in eight of nine quarters, up 30% across the period. Market Services net revenue rose 43%, which is remarkable given that its own share of matched volume fell from 15.7% to a low of 13.5% before partially recovering. Options share oscillated in a narrow band with no trend at all.

Revenue rising while share falls means the market grew faster than Nasdaq's slice of it, and the net revenue line benefits from rebate economics that the share number does not capture.

The overrated case. The listings win rate is the number the company leads with and it measures count, not value. The rival exchange listed seven of the ten largest offerings and took roughly 70% of the proceeds in the largest technology listings. Nasdaq wins the many and loses the biggest, which is a real split rather than a victory, and listings revenue reflects it: $122M to $129M across ten quarters, barely moving.

On profit pool, Nasdaq holds a fat slice in index licensing and regulatory software, and the thinnest possible one in matching, where the rebate goes back out the door.

The moat is widening in the two businesses that have one.