Image source: The Motley Fool.

DATE

  • Thursday, July 24, 2025, at 8 a.m. EDT

CALL PARTICIPANTS

  • Chair and Chief Executive Officer — Adena Friedman
  • Chief Financial Officer — Sarah Youngwood

Need a quote from one of our analysts? Email [email protected]

TAKEAWAYS

  • Net Revenue: $1.3 billion in non-GAAP net revenue for Q2 2025, up 12% year-over-year (non-GAAP), supported by both solutions and market services growth.
  • Solutions Revenue: $991 million in non-GAAP solutions revenue for Q2 2025, rising 10% year-over-year on a non-GAAP basis, with solid performance across all subdivisions.
  • Annualized Recurring Revenue (ARR): $2.9 billion in annualized recurring revenue (ARR) for Q2 2025, up 9% quarter-over-quarter (non-GAAP), with fintech ARR up 11% in Q2 2025 and SaaS ARR increasing 12% compared to Q2 2024.
  • Operating Income: Operating income reached $721 million for Q2 2025, up 16% (non-GAAP) as margin expanded to 55%, a jump of two percentage points compared to the prior year
  • Earnings Per Share (EPS): $0.85 diluted EPS for Q2 2025, up 24% (non-GAAP), reflecting continued operating leverage.
  • Operating Expense: Operating expense (non-GAAP) was $585 million for Q2 2025, up just under 8%, driven mainly by higher compensation costs and ongoing technology investment.
  • Market Services Net Revenue: $306 million in net revenue for market services in Q2 2025, up 21%, led by record quarters in both U.S. options and cash equities.
  • Capital Access Platforms Revenue: $527 million in revenue for capital asset platforms in Q2 2025, ARR in this segment grew 6%.
  • Index Revenue: Index revenue (non-GAAP) grew 17% in Q2 2025, primarily from a 25% increase in average ETP AUM to $663 billion.
  • IPO Win Rate: 79% for the quarter, as 38 new operating companies raised $3.6 billion in Q2 2025; YTD 2025 win rate 81% from 83 new issuers.
  • European Listings: Six new listings in the quarter, with ten year-to-date (YTD) new listings; €2.2 billion total capital raised year to date 2025, representing 53% of all European IPO capital in the first half of 2025.
  • ARR Growth by Subdivision (Fintech): Financial crime management technology ARR up 19% in Q2 2025, regulatory technology ARR up 10% in Q2 2025, capital markets technology ARR up 9% in Q2 2025.
  • Client Metrics (Fintech): 57 new fintech clients in Q2 2025, 130 upsells, and seven cross-sells closed.
  • Efficiency Program Progress: $130 million of the planned $140 million net expense efficiency target actioned by quarter-end.
  • Gross Leverage Ratio: Gross leverage ratio reached 3.2x at the end of Q2 2025, surpassing the company’s previous 3.3x gross leverage ratio milestone 16 months ahead of schedule.
  • Free Cash Flow: Free cash flow was $467 million for Q2 2025, supporting capital returns and debt paydown.
  • Share Repurchases: 1.2 million shares repurchased for ~$100 million during Q2 2025.
  • Dividend: $0.27 per share dividend for Q2 2025, equaling a 34% annualized payout ratio.
  • 2025 Non-GAAP Expense Guidance: Updated range of $2.295 billion to $2.335 billion for 2025 non-GAAP expense guidance, due solely to FX movements; no change to underlying organic expense growth rate at the midpoint of guidance.
  • Verafin Expansion: First European Tier 1 bank signed for consortium-based payments fraud solution proof of concept in Q2 2025.
  • AgenTek AI Workforce Launch: Digital sanctions analyst tool reduced alert review workload by more than 80% in early beta results when integrated into compliance workflows.
  • CME Group Agreement: Contract extension to 2039 for exclusive futures and options on Nasdaq indices confirmed.
  • Cross-Sell Pipeline: Cross-sells accounted for over 15% of the financial technology division sales pipeline at the end of Q2 2025, and are targeted to surpass $100 million in run-rate revenue from cross-sells by the end of 2027.
  • SaaS Penetration in ARR: Rose one percentage point to 37% compared to Q2 2024.
  • Product Launches: 33 new index products launched in Q2 2025, Over half of these new products were international; seven new insurance annuity products for institutional clients in Q2 2025.
  • Record ETP AUM: ETP AUM reached $745 billion at quarter-end for Q2 2025 following net inflows of $20 billion and $88 billion in net inflows over the last twelve months.

SUMMARY

Nasdaq (NDAQ 1.39%) delivered double-digit non-GAAP revenue and EPS growth for Q2 2025, materially aided by record volumes in U.S. options and equities, and a robust expansion in both fintech and index franchises. The company’s solutions segment demonstrated higher client engagement through increased cross-sells and new client acquisitions, underpinned by rapid ARR and SaaS penetration increases. Management reaffirmed capital discipline by accelerating deleveraging, executing efficiency initiatives, and enhancing shareholder returns through targeted repurchases and dividends. Strategic investments in AI-powered compliance tools, international expansion of Verafin, and major contract renewals such as the CME Group extension were cited as future growth drivers.

  • Chief Executive Officer Friedman stated, "the strong performance of recent listings, especially of large-cap companies, has raised optimism on the IPO outlook for the remainder of this year and into 2026."
  • The company achieved a milestone in its “Switch program” with $271 billion in year-to-date market capitalization switched in the first half, marking the strongest six-month period since the program’s inception.
  • Chief Financial Officer Youngwood detailed, "cross-sells continue to represent over 15% of the financial technology division's pipeline, with strength across all three subdivisions."
  • Management reported that more than half of index revenue growth was driven by asset factors, which include valuation and asset inflows.
  • In response to regulatory clarity, the company expects improvement in professional services revenue from its regulatory technology business in Q4 2025 and early 2026.
  • The efficiency program, which actioned approximately $130 million by period-end, is reflected in expense containment.
  • Friedman confirmed, concerning Verafin’s international strategy, that Europe is not going to show up in the numbers in 2025 or 2026, but as you get into 2027, 2028, it should start to be a contributor if we're successful.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

  • ARR (Annualized Recurring Revenue): Annualized value of subscription or recurring revenue from ongoing client contracts, a key metric for SaaS and fintech businesses.
  • Switch Program: Nasdaq’s listings initiative incentivizing companies to transfer (switch) their stock exchange listing to Nasdaq from a competitor exchange.
  • ETP AUM (Exchange-Traded Products Assets Under Management): Total market value of assets held within Nasdaq-listed exchange-traded products, including ETFs and ETPs.
  • Cross-Sell: The practice of selling additional products or services to existing clients—here, additional fintech solutions sold to existing Nasdaq customers.
  • Verafin: Nasdaq’s acquired anti-financial crime management technology business focusing on SaaS-based compliance and fraud detection for banks and financial institutions.
  • AgenTek AI Workforce: Suite of newly launched digital compliance automation tools leveraging AI to streamline and enhance financial regulatory workflows and due diligence.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Ato Garrett: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Nasdaq's second quarter 2025 financial results. On the line are Adena Friedman, our Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Sarah Youngwood, our Chief Financial Officer, and other members of the management team. After prepared remarks, we will open the line for Q&A. The press release and earnings presentation accompanying this call can be found on our Investor Relations website. I would like to remind you that we will be making forward-looking statements on this call that involve risks. A summary of those risks is contained in our press release, with a more complete description in our annual report on Form 10-K.

We will discuss our financial performance on a non-GAAP basis, excluding the impact of divestiture truth and the impact of FX. Organic and adjusted growth rates are equivalent this quarter as they include the same period-over-period adjustment. Definitions and reconciliations of U.S. GAAP to non-GAAP plus adjustments can be found in our earnings presentation, as well as in the file in the financial section of our Investor Relations website at ir.nasdaq.com. Also, we have included a page in the appendix regarding the sale of our Nordic Power's future business to Yaronix. And with that, I will turn the call over to Adena.

Adena Friedman: Thank you, Ato, and good morning, everyone. I will start with Nasdaq's second quarter results and will then review a more detailed discussion of our financials. I'm pleased with Nasdaq's excellent overall financial performance in the quarter. We delivered $1.3 billion in net revenue, a year-over-year increase of 12%. Solutions revenues were $991 million, representing 10% year-over-year growth. Our overall annualized recurring revenue, or ARR, grew 9% to $2.9 billion. Expenses were up just under 8% year-over-year, driven primarily by the timing of our annual compensation cycle as we communicated on last quarter's call. Operating income of $721 million grew 16%, and we delivered 24% EPS growth.

Our results continue to demonstrate the strength of our diversified business, particularly given the heightened volatility that the markets and our broader clients faced early in the quarter. More broadly, although macroeconomic uncertainty persists, the U.S. economy continues to demonstrate solid fundamentals as the labor market and consumer spending remain resilient. While GDP growth across Europe has still been muted, expectations for a recovery in consumer demand and a rebound of investment into the regions support an improving outlook.

Across the business environment, investment in technology transformation continues as companies focus on achieving benefits from AI. This is driving momentum across infrastructure modernization, accelerated cloud readiness, and enhanced data management. These dynamics are evident across the banking and capital market sectors where clients are focused on technology investments to modernize their infrastructure, improve their risk management and regulatory compliance, and fight financial crime. Although uncertainty remains as to the longer-term impact of trade and economic policies, this resilience is translated into a robust sales pipeline across our financial technology solutions as well as active markets, index inflows, and an improving IT landscape.

Turning to our high-level financial performance within our divisions, Capital Access platforms generated 9% revenue growth and 6% ARR growth. Financial technology delivered 10% revenue growth and 11% ARR growth, including 19% in financial crime management technology, 10% in regulatory technology, and 9% in capital markets technology. Market services delivered 21% net revenue growth. I'll now cover our business and operational highlights beginning with the capital access platforms where I'll start with data and listings. In our listings franchise, the strong momentum in our switch program continued. Year to date, $271 billion in market capitalization, including Shopify and Kimberly Clark, have switched to Nasdaq.

This represents the best first-half performance since the official launch of our Switch program 20 years ago. Turning to the IPOs, in the second quarter, we welcomed 38 new operating companies to Nasdaq, representing a 79% win rate, raising a total of $3.6 billion and extending Nasdaq's listing leadership to 46 consecutive quarters. Year to date, we saw the highest level of new issuances in the first half since the first half of 2021, attracting 83 operating companies, including three of the top five largest IPOs, and with an overall 81% win rate. Importantly, the strong performance of recent listings, especially of large-cap companies, has raised optimism on the IPO outlook for the remainder of this year and into 2026.

Our European listings business also delivered a great second quarter with six new listings. Year to date, Nasdaq exchanges in Europe welcomed ten new listings, which similarly included three of the five largest IPOs in Europe. Combined, these IPOs raised €2.2 billion, 53% of all IPO capital raised in Europe, and a fivefold increase in capital raised compared to the first half of 2024. We're particularly excited to see our Stockholm Exchange continue to lead as Europe's premier destination for new listings, underpinned by the relative valuation of its market and the strength of the local ecosystem.

Our data business performance reflects strong and sustained demand for our comprehensive and innovative data products, with growth in new sales, upsells, and usage across our client segments and geography. Our industry-leading index franchise continues to drive solid growth. We managed through heightened volatility as market value declines at the beginning of the quarter were offset by higher derivatives volumes followed by a fast recovery in market values. Throughout the quarter, inflows were strong at $20 billion. Over the last twelve months, we achieved a new record for net inflows of $88 billion. As volatility stabilized, we exited the quarter with a new record ETP AUM at $745 billion.

We remain focused on product innovation, with 33 new products launched during the quarter, over half of which were international. Additionally, we continue to focus on growing our exposure to institutional clients with the launch of seven products within the insurance annuity space. Earlier this week, we were pleased to announce that Nasdaq and CME Group signed an extension through 2039 of CME Group's exclusive contract to offer futures and options on futures based on the Nasdaq 100 and other Nasdaq indices, reflecting the company's shared commitment to delivering value through trusted benchmark products. I also want to provide a brief comment on the proposed request for Invesco QQ Trust. Nasdaq was engaged with Invesco as Invesco explored these proposals.

Importantly, the proposed change does not alter the terms of Nasdaq's licensing arrangements with Invesco nor the administration of the Nasdaq 100 index. We remain committed to our strategic partnership with Invesco and to delivering the trusted benchmark on which investors rely. Within Workflow and Insights, Corporate Solutions delivered modest growth benefiting from our product and technology investments, which have enhanced our competitive position. We drove several notable wins, including a Nasdaq board advantage sale to a large international bank, which is also a significant FinTech client. In analytics, we continue to see strong demand for our Datalink and EBS solutions across the investment management community, as well as improved gross retention rates.

Lastly, across CAP, we are focused on meeting the growing demand for private market solutions. In June, we announced a partnership to be the exclusive distributor of Nasdaq private markets take d API, bringing enhanced transparency and valuation visibility of private companies. Since launch, we have already signed two clients, and the pipeline is building. For asset managers and asset owners, our investment platform provides a wealth of private markets intelligence, which has become an increasingly powerful aspect to drive new sales and client retention. Turning next to financial technology, we delivered growth across products, client segments, and geographies.

This is driven by sustained demand for our mission-critical technologies and terrific execution by our team, especially considering the complexity of the landscape. Financial institutions throughout the quarter. Our sales execution remains strong as we signed 57 new clients, seven cross-sells, and 130 upsells during the quarter. Turning to a review of the subdivisions, starting with financial crime management technology, Nasdaq Verafin had another solid quarter of execution across client segments and continued to lead the industry through product innovation. In the enterprise client segment serving tier one and tier two banks, we successfully executed on our land and expand strategy with three new signings, including one cross-sell and two upsells.

We are also pleased with the ongoing progress in our upsell conversion timeline, maintaining the 50% reduction in the sales cycle as compared to the original contract. We signed our first proof of concept with the European Tier one bank for our consortium-based payments fraud offering during the quarter, marking a significant milestone in our early efforts to expand into Europe. Demand among our small and medium-sized client segment also remained solid with 46 new clients signed this quarter. Turning next to regulatory technology where we signed seven new clients and four cross-sells collectively.

Revenue and ARR growth in Acxiom SL were driven by a combination of large prior year client bookings starting to go live, in addition to new bookings. The improving clarity around the regulatory environment in the U.S., for example, with the proposed changes to the supplementary leverage ratio, has further contributed to the strength and diversity of our pipeline. In surveillance, beyond the strong revenue and ARR growth, we were pleased to sign three cross-sells to existing Market Tech clients, which included two market operators and a large financial institution. Capital Markets Technology delivered a solid quarter with strong momentum further amplified by the normalization of sales cycles.

In market technology, we are pleased to see strong demand from traditional and emerging trade infrastructure clients for our technology infrastructure solutions, as well as our operational expertise. We signed three clients to Eclipse Trading, our fourth-generation marketplace technology platform, including two fully managed services mandates where we host and manage our clients' entire trading environment, and one AWS-hosted SaaS deployment. Calypso's performance reflected momentum in subscription revenues, including strong demand in Europe, where we delivered two new clients and one cross-sell, and we remain confident in the pipeline for the rest of the year. Turning now to market services, the division delivered record net revenues reflecting broad-based strength across our U.S. and European markets.

We are proud to support our clients with a seamless trading experience as heightened volatility and rapidly evolving market conditions drove record industry volumes in U.S. cash equities and elevated volumes in U.S. equity options and European cash equities. We successfully executed the Russell rebalance with over 2.5 billion shares matched at a record notional value of $102 billion, further showcasing the strength and resiliency of our market. In U.S. equities, we maintained our disciplined approach to pricing amid exceptionally high volume as we managed capture and optimized the value of our franchise. In European equities, we delivered sequential improvements in share.

Further, we continue to leverage our capabilities to capture off-exchange activity in Europe as well as in the U.S. Across the company overall, our excellent performance was driven by strong momentum across all three divisions, underpinned by execution on our strategic priorities. Within our integrate priority, we are on track to action our expanded $140 million net expense efficiency program by year-end, with approximately $130 million actioned as of the end of the second quarter. We achieved a gross leverage ratio of 3.2 times at quarter-end, overachieving our milestone set at the closing of the Adenza acquisition 16 months ahead of schedule. Within our innovate priority, we remain focused on delivering new innovations to enhance our value proposition with clients.

This week, Nasdaq Verafin announced the launch of its AgenTek AI Workforce, a suite of digital workers that will deliver a step change in compliance effectiveness. Early results from the first two agents in beta, the digital sanctions analyst and the digital enhanced due diligence analyst, demonstrate AgenTek AI's potential to address the most resource-intensive compliance workflows. For example, when onboarded into a bank's alert triage workflow, our digital sanctions analyst automates the acknowledgment, screening, and documentation processes, reducing alert review workload by more than 80%. We also continue to expand the library of anti-money laundering targeted typology analytics.

Our tariff financing analytics launched in Q1 and is already being leveraged by 900 clients, nearly doubling adoption versus the end of the last quarter. Our drug trafficking analytics launched this quarter in early beta has already driven strong client engagement. In addition, we're continuing to invest in new partnerships to enhance product capabilities, including our partnership with Fincom, which supports advanced sanction screening. Beyond AI, digital assets represent another key theme driving our innovation as we focus on the maturation of the ecosystem and supporting institutional adoption. For instance, Nasdaq Calypso announced an innovative proof of concept which will expand upon its industry-leading collateral management capabilities.

The use case demonstrates our ability to integrate on-chain capabilities to allow us to help financial institutions manage collateral across asset classes and markets in a more dynamic and efficient manner. We continue to work with our partners and clients to finalize the product build and are targeting launch in early to mid-2026. Lastly, within our accelerate priority, our one Nasdaq strategy drove seven cross-sell wins across financial technology in the quarter for a total of 26 cross-sells since the Adenza acquisition. At the end of the quarter, cross-sells accounted for over 15% of the financial technology sales pipeline, and we remain on track to surpass $100 million in run-rate revenue from cross-sells by the end of 2027.

Looking ahead to the remainder of 2025, Nasdaq is well-positioned to continue to deliver for our clients and shareholders. We remain conscious of the impact of sustained uncertainty in the economic and market environment, but continue to demonstrate that our diversified business can deliver through different cycles. This is reflective of our role as a trusted strategic partner to our clients across the financial ecosystem and our ability to help them navigate across market environments, capture strategic opportunities, manage risk, and solidify their operational resilience. We enter the second half of the year with momentum across our platform and will remain laser-focused on supporting and innovating for our clients as the environment evolves in the period ahead.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Sarah to provide more details on our financial results.

Sarah Youngwood: Thank you, Adena, and good morning, everyone. In the second quarter of 2025, Nasdaq delivered one of our strongest quarters on record with 24% EPS growth, underscoring the durability of the model and the consistency of our execution. Starting with quarterly results on slide eleven, we reported net revenue of $1.3 billion, up 12%, with solutions revenue of $991 million, up 10%. Operating expense was $585 million, up just under 8%, leading to an operating margin of 55% and EBITDA margin of 58%, both up two percentage points. This resulted in net income of $492 million and diluted EPS of $0.85, up 24%. Slide twelve shows the drivers of our 12% net revenue growth for the quarter.

We generated 8.5 percentage points of ARFA driven by new and existing clients and product innovation. Meanwhile, Beta Factors contributed 3.5 percentage points of growth this quarter driven by higher valuations in Nasdaq indices and higher overall volumes in market services. As shown on slide thirteen, we realized a second consecutive quarter of ARR growth of 9%. This quarter's 9% included 11% ARR growth in fintech and SaaS revenue growth of 12%. SaaS as a percentage of ARR increased one percentage point to 37% compared to the second quarter of 2024. Let's review division results starting on Slide fourteen. In capital asset platforms, we delivered revenue of $527 million, up 9%, with ARR growth of 6%.

Data and listings revenue was up 5%, with ARR up 7%. Revenue growth was primarily driven by data, due to the positive impact of new sales, upsells, and usage. With listings, the benefits of new listings and pricing were partially offset by delisting and lower amortization of prior period initial listing fees. This is consistent with our previous comments and we expect that to be the case for the remaining quarters of the year. Index revenue was up 17% in the quarter, mainly driven by average ETP AUM of $663 billion, up 25%. This is due primarily to strong net inflows, with more than half of the quarterly revenue growth driven by asset factors.

ETP included a record $88 billion of net inflows in the twelve months, including $20 billion in the second quarter. Volume-based license revenue was also up modestly as derivative contract volume, up 15%, was mostly offset by a mix shift towards micro contracts in the quarter, which have lower capture. In workflow insights, revenue and ARR growth were both up 5% for the quarter. The increase was driven primarily by analytics, mainly investment in Datalink, with continued demand from hedge funds, asset managers, asset owners, and consultants, who value our differentiated data. Corporate solutions grew modestly due to pricing and key client wins. Quarterly operating margin for the division was 58%, up one percentage point.

Moving to financial technology on Slide fifteen, revenue was $464 million, up 10%, with ARR growth of 11%. We are extremely proud of these results in the context of a tough Calypso comp. Our business was resilient amid the modest delays we described early in the quarter, which contributed to low single-digit professional services revenue growth. The division signed 57 new clients, 130 upsells, and seven cross-sells in the quarter. Even with these wins, cross-sells continue to represent over 15% of the financial technology division's pipeline, with strength across all three subdivisions. Financial crime management technology revenue grew 20%, with ARR growth of 19%.

We signed 46 new SMB clients and three new enterprise deals, including one cross-sell and two upsells. Net revenue retention was 113%, reflecting strong client engagement, including the continued adoption of the Gen AI entity research copilot and targeted typology analytics. In addition to persistent execution in the SME segment, a consistent contributor to growth, and ongoing momentum in product innovation, the business continues to make strong progress in moving upmarket and is showing early traction with our international expansion. As a reminder, the sales cycles and time to value for tier one and tier two deals can take longer to flow into the subscription revenue run rate, but the momentum in the business persists.

We more than doubled enterprise signings year to date versus all of 2024, which will begin to translate into stronger growth from this client segment starting in the fourth quarter. Regulatory technology revenue grew 11%, with ARR up 10% for the quarter. The division signed seven new clients, 67 upsells, and four cross-sells. Revenue growth reflects solid performance despite modest client readiness delays driven by regulatory uncertainty. As we get clarity from regulators, professional services revenue should start to improve in the fourth quarter and early 2026. Capital Markets Technology revenue grew 8%, with ARR up 9% for the quarter, and with four new clients, 61 upsells, and two cross-sells.

Financial Technology operating margin was 47%, which was flat versus the prior year quarter. As we wrap up our solutions division, we expect our 2025 revenue growth outlook for the divisions and subdivisions to be generally consistent with our comments provided in the April earnings call. Turning to market services on slide sixteen, we had record net revenue of $306 million, reflecting growth of 21%. This included a second consecutive record net revenue quarter in both U.S. options and U.S. cash equities, both primarily driven by the increase in market-wide volume, but also included higher share and slightly higher capture in U.S. options, both in index options, and higher capture in European derivatives, and higher U.S. state plan revenue.

Market services operating margin was 63%, up five percentage points, highlighting the strong operating leverage of this platform. Moving to expense on slide seventeen, we had operating expense of $585 million, up just under 8%. Consistent with expectations provided last quarter, and driven by strong investments in technology and people to support revenue and drive innovation and goals, employee compensation, and other increases largely due to inflation. This resulted in an operating margin and EBITDA margin both up two percentage points, to 55% and 58% respectively. We are maintaining the midpoint of our organic expectations for the year, which carries forward our trajectory of healthy operating leverage accompanying our strong revenue performance.

We have started to experience a more consistent FX impact as the year has progressed. We are baking our 2025 non-GAAP expense guidance to reflect the impact of movements in FX rates and to narrow the overall range with six months left to the year. Guidance is now a range of $2.295 billion to $2.335 billion. The $20 million increase in the midpoint of our guidance is entirely due to FX, with no change to the organic expense growth rate implied by the midpoint of our guidance. Due to the offsetting positive FX impact on net revenue, we expect the change in FX to have no impact on our operating income.

Lastly, on expense, we have actioned approximately $130 million out of a $140 million efficiency program as of the end of the second quarter, and our team is well-positioned to continue to deliver on the program. We maintain our 2025 non-GAAP tax rate guidance of 22.5% to 24.5%. Turning to capital allocation on Slide eighteen, Nasdaq generated free cash flow of $467 million in the second quarter. This strong level of cash flow enabled us to support deleveraging, our dividend, and share repurchases. We paid a dividend of $0.27 per share, or $155 million in the quarter, representing a 34% annualized payout ratio.

In our continued commitment towards deleveraging, we paid down the $400 million remaining on the June 2025 bonds at maturity using cash on hand. We reached a gross leverage ratio of 3.2x at the end of the quarter, overachieving a 3.3x milestone 16 months early. The 3.2x ratio improved from 3.4x a quarter ago, despite a 0.1x headwind from USD weakness relative to the euro. We also repurchased a total of 1.2 million shares of common stock, or roughly $100 million in the second quarter, which included the completion of our annual and full utilization-related repurchases in April, as well as opportunistic repurchases beyond that commitment.

As we continue to execute against our compelling organic growth strategy, we remain focused on our organic investments in the business, our dividend program, and opportunistic debt and share repurchases. In closing, Nasdaq delivered excellent results amid a dynamic operating environment, exemplified by a second consecutive quarter of double-digit net revenue growth and ARR growth of 9%. We continue to demonstrate strong operating leverage and make meaningful progress in our capital strategy. Our first-half performance reflects our ability to grow as we cycle and underpins our confidence to achieve our 2025 objectives as well as deliver sustainable growth and long-term shareholder value as we drive forward in the second half of the year and beyond.

With that, let's open the line to Q&A.

Operator: Thank you. We ask that you please limit your questions to no more than one, but feel free to go back into the queue, and if time permits, we'll be happy to take your follow-up questions at that time. Our first question is from Michael Cyprys with Morgan Stanley.

Michael Cyprys: Good morning. Thanks for taking the question here. Just wanted to ask about AgenTek AI. I was hoping maybe you could elaborate a bit on the opportunity set that you see. I know you flagged one in particular. Was just hoping maybe you could elaborate more broadly on how you're experimenting with that across the firm. I know you mentioned the example on Verafin, but just more broadly, how do you think about the opportunity across Nasdaq? What areas can make the most sense next? How meaningful in terms of efficiency gains do you think you might be able to extract from this? Just any color you might be able to share. Thank you.

Adena Friedman: Great. Thanks, Michael. Well, internally, we have programs that focus on AI in the product and then AI on the business. And we do have those as distinct programs because in the product, we've integrated AI within each of the product development pipelines. So we kind of look at what is the pipeline of opportunities and the future of each product and how does AI play a role. So in the products, we've introduced Gen AI and algorithmic AI to support Calypso, for instance, in terms of efficiency and risk management and more accuracy in risk management calculations. Our governance platform in terms of forward summarization.

And we are continuing to work with the users of governance to see where else we can use that kind of summarization tool to make the preparation for board meetings and the process for managing board meetings more efficient. We use it also to drive new intelligence around something called sustainable lens that helps companies understand the competitive dynamics around sustainability programs. And then we also, inside our fintech division, have used it to support, and we are using it to support these efficiencies for our clients.

So as we talked about with the new Gen AI that's being rolled out within the financial crime management, it will reduce the time that analysts have to spend on some of that road work that is in terms of investigative work, reporting work. But that's also applicable across Acxiom itself and surveillance, which also have a lot of that type of regulatory reporting obligations tied to them. So all of those things are really applicable across in the product, and our product roadmaps reflect those. On the business side, is where we are applying AI into the company to make us more efficient.

And our two focus areas that we really started to scale up are in the product development life cycle because there's so many more Gen AI tools that can be integrated together to create more automation in product development and product delivery in addition to in the client success areas in terms of having information at the fingertips of our client success agents to support their work with clients and helping them understand issues or troubleshoot issues. So I think that it is a holistic approach to bringing AI into the business. Our efficiency program in 2025 does reflect just early progress in that in terms of bringing some efficiencies in.

But we do expect that to scale even further in 2026, and we'll provide you more as we get into 2026.

Operator: Our next question comes from Alex Kramm with Goldman Sachs.

Alex Kramm: Thank you. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to go back to your comments around slight improvement, I guess, you guys are seeing in the pipelines and accelerating sales momentum towards the back end of the year. You made a couple specific points, I think, both on-prem dynamics for Q4 as well as onboarding within financial crime, I guess, in the fourth quarter as well. Maybe just put a little more granularity on what that means for revenues in these businesses towards the end of the year and more importantly, how we should be thinking about the momentum in fintech entering 2026?

Adena Friedman: Sure. Yeah. Thank you. And, yeah, you captured the comments well. So we do have a very healthy pipeline across our fintech businesses. And one of the things we also look at is the maturity of our pipeline. And I think that the maturity of our pipeline continues to improve so that we feel, you know, have increasing confidence in our ability to bring these clients on board or upsell the clients appropriately. So it feels very healthy right now. The demand that we have across the world, and it is very much across the world, for improved trade infrastructure, risk management, regulatory reporting, and theft and crime. I mean, it's really holistic too.

It's not really geared towards one particular product. It's really across our franchise. And then specifically with financial crime management, we are talking, and when we talk about the enterprise segment, these are the tier one and tier two banks, as Sarah mentioned, we have already signed twice as many deals in that space as we signed all of last year. But it takes time to implement them, same as it does with Acxiom and Calypso. So the revenue starts to ramp up and come online as we get those clients implemented.

And that's why she mentioned with FMT, that we should start to see more contribution of revenue from tier one to two clients getting into Q4 and into 2026. So we do feel like there's momentum coming in through the second half of the year, and hopefully, you know, it'll also accrue to the benefit of 2026 as well.

Operator: Our next question comes from Patrick Moley with Piper Sandler.

Patrick Moley: Maybe just sticking with some of the sales cycle commentary. I was hoping you could just talk a little bit more about how your conversations with customers in fintech trended in the second quarter? What impact did some of the tariff-driven volatility we saw in April have on those conversations? Just trying to get a better sense for some of the timing of those wins in the second quarter. Thanks.

Adena Friedman: Sure. Yeah. So I think two things. We talked on the first quarter call, we talked about two trends that we were monitoring. One was in particularly with Calypso in the U.S., we were seeing some conversations with their clients back in March and April kind of elongate a bit. You know, clients were saying, well, we need to spend a little time understanding the environment before we make final commitments. But as we got into May and June, those conversations normalized and clients were ready to move forward. But, you know, that did give us a little bit of kind of a few weeks of a little bit of a pause in the sales cycles.

So I think that's one thing we've mentioned. And the other is with the regulatory uncertainty in terms of what will particularly in the United States, there are changes in the oversight and governance of regulation in the United States. I think some of the implementations with Acxiom SL were starting to get elongated because they weren't sure what timelines were gonna be actually for in the U.S. and also in Europe and certain regulations. And I think some of that is starting to shore up. I did mention SLR. You know, some regulatory guidance is starting to come out that gives clients an understanding of what their obligations are gonna be.

And so those conversations with our clients are becoming more certain, but that's helping to shore up the pipeline. Implementations are still working their way through, and I think that Sarah did mention that is driving, you know, low single-digit growth in the professional services and a particular impact on Acxiom itself. So that's why we mentioned that both in the first quarter and then she discussed that in the second quarter as well.

Sarah Youngwood: Go ahead, Sarah. Yeah. I would also add. If you look at what we put on in our usual page eight of the presentation, and which we mentioned, what Adena and I, the wealth of signings in fintech in this quarter was, I think, really important. And it's really a contributor to that momentum and with a strong pipeline that Adena has also mentioned.

Adena Friedman: Yeah. We were just extremely proud of the team because they work so closely with their clients throughout the quarter to help, you know, you wanna be both patient and pleasantly persistent. And I would say that our sales team just did an excellent job of staying close to the clients throughout the quarter in order to get them across the finish line wherever possible.

Operator: Our next question comes from William Katz with TD Cowen.

William Katz: Great. Thank you very much for taking the question this morning. Maybe switching gears a little bit. I'm sort of curious to get your latest thinking on the ability to leverage through the digital ecosystem. Obviously, the momentum building both from a use case as well as the regulatory backdrop around stablecoin and tokenization, maybe even just crypto. I was just wondering if you could talk us through where you see the greatest opportunities both from a volume perspective and perhaps even from an efficiency perspective of the platform as well. Thank you.

Adena Friedman: Great. Hey, Bill. So with regard to digital assets, I think you're right that there's some regulatory wins coming that are favorable towards the institutionalization of digital assets both in traditional and, I would say, traditional asset classes as well as in the crypto space. And the first one, of course, being with Stablecoin. And there, what that does is it creates a lot of efficiency of payment rails. And the ability to move money much more efficiently.

And so we're not a payments company, but we do care a lot about how capital markets operate and the efficiencies of those capital markets and the ability to move collateral more efficiently across different markets and asset classes, the ability to manage risk in a more dynamic way, as well as the digitization of less liquid assets that maybe create more efficiency in the trading of those assets around the world. As a technology provider, we provide technology to traditional markets and help them digitize assets all the way from trading all the way through to settlement and depository. But we also provide collateral management capabilities in Calypso.

As I mentioned with the proof of concept, what we're trying to show is that we can use on-chain capability to free up a lot of liquidity. There's a lot of excess liquidity trapped inside clearing brokers and clearing houses. So the question is can that move in a more dynamic way? So that's in stablecoin. I think with regard to market structure in the crypto space and just the digitizing of traditional assets, you know, the market structure is still yet to come. And we're heavily engaged with regulators and legislators to engage with them.

You know, we look forward to seeing how regulation can evolve because it is a great technology and it's an interesting asset class that's evolving. The one thing we always focus on in every conversation we have is what is going to benefit investors. So what market structure will be investor-first, investor-friendly? How can we also participate in those asset classes in a way that serves investors really successfully? Looking at things like allowing securities exchanges to own ATSs, which we cannot do today. Also, allowing us to have a single platform that can trade securities and non-securities. Things like that are gonna be part of the dialogue and market structure that open up opportunities.

But in general, we feel like the institutionalization of crypto as well as the ability to bring digital assets to drive efficiency is a positive for the industry. So we're very excited about, you know, where the direction of travel here.

Operator: Our next question comes from Simon Clinch with Rothschild and Company Redburn.

Simon Clinch: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if we could just pivot to the index business, please. And could you maybe just give us a little bit more color about the dynamics you're seeing in that business? Particularly strong flows that you saw again this quarter, and I was just wondering if you could maybe give some color around the durability of that or how to think about the structural dynamics there? Thanks.

Adena Friedman: Well, first, I think, first, Sarah and her team do a really nice job working with the business. So what we focus on is obviously alpha, what we can control. We control new product creation and we created 33 new products. We also have a very defined strategy around our expansion around institutional adoption, international expansion, and new products. So we have 33 new products, seven of which are in the institutional space. And many of them are also international in nature. So we are really executing quite well in that kind of three-pillar approach to growing and expanding the business.

We then also, of course, work very closely with investment management partners on driving adoption of our indexes, and we had $88 billion of inflows, $20 billion in the quarter. We can't necessarily control inflows all the time, but what we focus on is how do we make sure that investors understand both the track record but also the potential of these indexes to drive value for them. Do we create indexes that are really leaning towards the future of the economy, which of course is symbiotic with our brands? And then how do we also think about specific investor strategies?

So sometimes it can be more of like a dividend-oriented strategy or a buyback-oriented strategy or things that they wanna be focused on, and we work closely with our investment manager clients to create indexes in those areas. So in all of those fronts, I think we're doing a really great job. And I think we are a very strong partner. We take a partnership approach to every new index we create with our clients.

Operator: Our next question comes from Alex Kramm with UBS.

Alex Kramm: Yes. Hey, good morning, everyone. Just wanted to come back to the strength in FinTech and in particular on the capital markets side. And you talked to some of this already. But if I look at ARR, if my numbers are right, and I think they typically are, I think you added $39 million quarter over quarter in new ARR. So I think that's the largest sequential increase that we've seen, and obviously, we only have a couple of years of data here. But just wondering what specifically really drove such a chunky number. I mean, is it a lot of deals? I know you gave some numbers. Is it some really chunky things that happened?

Just the pipeline just had to execute against. And then more importantly, is it anything that maybe came a little earlier than you expected? And could this take away a little bit from the ARR for the remainder of the year? Thank you.

Adena Friedman: So just to unpack capital markets, there's three areas of that business. You have Calypso, you have Market Tech, and then you have the client services business. And so starting, I'll go to the front on that one. So starting with connectivity services, the volumes that we experienced in our markets definitely drove more demand for connectivity services among our clientele. And as a reminder, we have doubled the size of our data center, so that gives us more capacity to be able to serve that demand. The second is in, I think I mentioned Calypso second. So Calypso, we had a 34% growth quarter last year.

And so with the fact that we had 3% growth on top of 34% growth just says that, you know, we did a really nice job of finding new opportunities and working with our clients to close those opportunities. I would say pretty broad-based, Alex. It wasn't, like, one single thing, but, you know, there were some great, you know, some larger clients that were part of the quarter. There's a lot of upsells. And then in Market Tech, I think that's where, you know, there's three Eclipse Trading clients that I did mention. Those are significant deals because we're not just providing the software, we're managing the software.

And those tend to be larger contract opportunities for us because it's a managed service. So I think all of those things ultimately contributed to the strength in the ARR growth.

Operator: Our next question comes from Michael Cho with JPMorgan.

Michael Cho: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question here. I just wanted to touch on the data and listings business, which saw some nice revenue growth acceleration in Q2. You could call that the contribution from data, you know, driving some of the results here. I also think you called out low single-digit growth for 2025. And so probably maybe you could just remind us of the mix of the business here. And then when we think about kind of revenue growth acceleration in this segment, you know, how do we think about the impact from the, you know, data business continuing to trend along pretty well versus the improvement you're seeing in the listings business? Thanks.

Adena Friedman: Great. Thanks. Yeah. We're very pleased with the progress in the data business. And what we really focused on is continuing to expand our relationships with certain clients, especially retail brokerage platforms around the world, where they might take a deeper set of data from us and expand what they're offering to their clients around the world. And then we also are continuing that global expansion. There's so much interest in the U.S. market and having retail access to the U.S. market. And our products, we think, are obviously the best in the world in providing transparency of the market to them. And so we continue to find really strong demand there.

We're also seeing usage of our data because we do have certain data products that are usage-based. And there is a lot of retail involvement in the markets and volumes in the markets, and that retail demand is driving usage across the data as well. From our point of view, we would see that is trending, so that's a trend that we would know, we're looking at pretty good trends going into the second half of the year as well. And then in listings, it is an improving story. As we mentioned, we are seeing more new issuances this year.

We do have a really healthy pipeline, and we do hope to have even more large-cap companies come out in the second half of the year. It will be market-dependent. And as you all know, that also tends to have a little bit of a lag because we don't recognize all the initial listing fees upfront. That's amortized over multiple years. So it'll take a while for that to kind of show up as real momentum in the growth there. So, you know, we are trending a little above our median outlook there. I think we have good opportunities to continue that trend, but we also recognize it is an uncertain environment around us.

Operator: Our next question comes from Kyle Voigt with KBW.

Kyle Voigt: Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. So earlier this week, the SEC announced a roundtable for this September to discuss the trade-through rule or rule 611. And Chair Atkins took a view in that press release that 611 has not served investors or broker-dealers well. Obviously, expecting more details to come at the roundtable date, but just curious to hear how you view rule 611 and potential implications for Nasdaq in a world where rule 611 could be repealed or significantly modified.

Adena Friedman: So 611 is the order protection rule, and we are really looking forward to engaging the SEC through the roundtable and beyond on that topic. As you'll probably know, Reg NMS was put into place in 2005, 2006, with the order protection rule being the cornerstone of the rule, but not the only part of the rule. So we are very happy to have that engagement. We operate in markets outside the United States that don't have an order protection rule, like in Europe. We operate in markets in Canada that have de minimis standards around that rule. We operate very successfully in both of those geographies.

So we do know how to compete successfully and operate successfully in environments with and without the rule. So, you know, it's gonna be a healthy discussion and engagement. One thing we do wanna make sure the SEC thinks about is just what other parts of Reg NMS need to be adjusted if they are going to consider eliminating the OPR. But we feel very confident in our ability to be successful in any environment.

Operator: Our next question comes from Jeff Schmitt with William Blair.

Jeff Schmitt: Hi. Good morning. On Verafin, I know most of that business is in the U.S., but you're starting to make progress internationally there, signing up the first European bank. And when we think about your medium-term guide for that business of mid-twenties revenue growth, does that assume much international expansion, or could there potentially be, you know, upside there if that momentum picks up?

Adena Friedman: So we've always talked about three pillars of the growth that will underpin that business to achieve the medium-term outlook. And one is, of course, the continued growth of the SMB sector. And I think we continue to show real strength there with 46 signings this quarter. The second is the move upmarket in the U.S. to the tier one and tier twos. And we are starting to show some momentum, and I think as we mentioned, we have had more success this year than last year in signing new clients, and I think that should accrue to our benefit going into Q4 and beyond.

And then the European expansion has got a longer leg to that expansion plan to achieve our and to maintain our medium-term outlook. So, you know, Europe is not going to show up in the numbers in 2025 or 2026, but as you get into 2027, 2028, it should start to be a contributor if we're successful. We have to make sure we can land and expand, but we have a lot of confidence in our ability to create value for our clients there. So excited about the first milestone, but it's a long road there, but it is part of our medium-term outlook.

Operator: Our next question comes from Benjamin Budish with Barclays.

Benjamin Budish: Hi. Good morning, and thank you for taking the question. Adena, you mentioned in your prepared remarks, and I think in several prior quarters, an opportunity in the index business around annuities. Just curious if you could unpack that a little bit. I think it's something investors hear a little bit less about, but given demographic trends in the U.S., given some noise elsewhere about, you know, private markets entering the retirement space, just curious what Nasdaq's exposure looks like there. How big is that business today, and what are your ambitions there? Thank you.

Adena Friedman: Yeah. We're pretty early in our expansion into the insurance annuity space, so I would not say it's a huge contributor to our business yet. But because we actually, frankly, hired a sales team and have really gone through into that space only in the last couple of years. And with, like, a real precise approach and strategy. And so why, you know, why is that interesting? Because what we find interesting is Nasdaq 100 is one of the best indexes in the world, and yet there's very little institutional exposure to it. In the insurance space that has long investment horizons, it can be a huge value opportunity for them.

So we've been really starting to engage with them on creating specific insurance annuity vehicles that are specific per client. As we mentioned, we launched seven of them this quarter that really allow them to have exposure to the Nasdaq 100 and bring that into their portfolio. And, of course, as you know, they have a very broad portfolio mandate. So having great exposure to innovative growth companies is part of their mandate, and we think the Nasdaq 100 is a great vehicle for that.

Operator: Our next question comes from Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank.

Brian Bedell: Great. Thanks for taking my question. Just back on to capital markets, just looking at the second half, it sounds like the quarter was pretty clean. And given that I think your prior guidance is still sort of the low end of that high single to low double-digit growth range, but does this imply you'd be higher within that range given the strength in the second quarter? And then just bigger picture on the crypto ecosystem, just your appreciate your comments on that earlier, Adena.

Does the ecosystem that we see today in digital markets and crypto make you feel better about the longer-term growth rate for the Adenza business relative to, you know, when you did the acquisition over eighteen months ago?

Adena Friedman: Great. Thank you. With regard to Capital Markets Technology, as we mentioned, you know, given some of the pauses we had in some of the conversations, that did elongate some of the sales cycles, which will ultimately kind of take a little bit of time to flow through. So, you know, we're and also, we think it's a little too early to tell whether or not this will have a meaningful impact on the full year. So we're, as we said, we're maintaining general consistency in the way that we're considering both the divisional and subdivisional growth rates for the year.

In terms of the crypto and the ecosystem there and the fact that it is growing and maturing, there is regulation starting to come through. Those are things we did not actually anticipate in the Adenza transaction itself. But if we are seeing a world where crypto and the crypto itself becomes more institutionally available, that is an opportunity across our FinTech division, you know, because if institutions adopt those asset classes, they're gonna wanna make sure that they have the right trade infrastructure, the right risk management, the right regulatory reporting, and anti-fin crime to support it. In crypto.

Digital assets, like the technology of digital assets in terms of digitizing traditional securities, we have been in that world for quite some time and we have been building our technology to support that for quite some time. So I think that those are all the things that we focus on. If we can see that crypto be an opportunity in terms of the ability for them to manage collateral, move collateral, and manage risk as they're participating in this market.

Operator: Our next question comes from Dan Fannon with Jefferies.

Dan Fannon: Thanks. Good morning. I wanted to come back to the listings business, understanding that it is subject to the market conditions. But the other ancillary revenues like corporate solutions that come off of that, how would you characterize that environment today? I think you highlighted a board vantage win, but just curious about the kind of broader workflow and insights business. And then also as we think about IPOs coming back, what's the lag effect with the associated revenues with some of these other businesses?

Adena Friedman: Yeah. Sure. So if we talk about workflow and insights in general, as we discussed it and as Sarah discussed it, we are very pleased with how analytics and Datalink are continuing to grow. Investment and analytics had improved gross retention and kind of just a general very healthy environment for growth there. And we have some great capabilities in the private space that we've been rolling out for quite some time, and that's really helping to drive demand for investment in particular.

In terms of corporate solutions in the listing environment, corporate solutions have continued to have modest growth, and I would say more challenges just in terms of the fact that, you know, the market for some time and the growth and the market value, the present market value in the markets were tended to be geared towards the top end of the market. That's been expanding across the markets more, which helps the health of that corporate audience for our corporate solutions. But it continues to be, I would say, a relatively modest growth environment, but not a hyper-growth environment at all in the listing space for corporate solutions.

In terms of the flow-through of an improved listing environment into corporate solutions, just a reminder, we do give our listing clients a starter kit essentially of IRs or Governance is not included in that program, but IR is. And that takes the three-year program. So it does create a delay in paid subscriptions for those services. But we can upsell them on other things in that intervening period. So more IPOs do open up the aperture and do increase the pipeline. And so we are looking forward to having more companies coming in and tapping the public market.

Operator: Our next question comes from Owen Lau with Oppenheimer.

Owen Lau: Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my quick question. So I want to go back to tokenization on both public and private markets. And on the private market, there are more platforms offering tokenized private companies. Does this trend support or disintermediate Nasdaq private market longer term? And similarly for public market public equities? I know Nasdaq is going to launch 24/6 trading next year. How do you see the competitive dynamics there? Thanks.

Adena Friedman: Sure. Well, Owen, I view tokenization as just a technology. Tokenizing is a technology that's used. And in this case of both the tokenization of private securities that you're talking about, and the tokenization of public securities. I think at least what's come out so far is this new technology that really serves the same purpose as other things that already exist in the marketplace. So for instance, in private company shares, there are these special purpose vehicles that are created. But then wealth channels can then use to aggregate demand from their wealth clients, but the wealth channel itself is the investor in that special purpose vehicle. So it's one investor investing in the actual company shares.

That is essentially what they're doing with tokenization as well. It's just a different technology construct to achieve the same goal. And in that, actually, Nasdaq private market does help supply, provide, and support those types of special purpose vehicles, but in connection with the corporate. You know, the corporate clients are a key constituent, a key clientele for Nasdaq private market. So they do everything with the corporates in mind. But to the extent that there are transactions that are occurring that aren't just tenders or secondaries and blocks and other things, and also the creation of such forward vehicles, NPM does facilitate that in a collaborative way.

In terms of tokenization in general, in terms of public and private securities, one of the things we focus on is what is ultimately to the benefit of investors? Make sure that you think about liquidity, transparency, and integrity. No matter what the asset class is. And that's our mantra. And so what will increase the liquidity? So we have obviously Nasdaq private market, Nasdaq fund secondaries that can help drive liquidity in private assets. You have transparency, and we have TC coming out of another private market now to create transparency of price discovery in the private company shares. But, you know, there's still not a lot of transparency of the underlying companies themselves, the underlying funds themselves.

So that's something that probably needs to develop. Then, of course, integrity to make sure you think about the regulatory framework to drive more accessibility of those assets. It's gonna be important regardless of the technology that's used to do it. And then in the public markets, we are very focused on making the public company experience a better one for companies. You know, it's such an important part of our economy. And as Chair Atkins said on CNBC the other day, let's make IPOs great again. We're very excited about that. We're engaged heavily with the SEC on ideas around that.

And so we do think it's important to have a vibrant public market while also supporting the private market.

Operator: Our next question comes from Chris Allen with Citi.

Chris Allen: Good morning, everyone. Thanks for the question. In the deck, you noted price increases across a number of segments, RegTech, Financial Crime, Capital Markets Tech, and Data Listings. Just wondering how price increases compared to prior historical price increases and what level is contractual of the price increases?

Sarah Youngwood: Yeah. So question Chris, this is definitely part of our growth formula, and I would say that this quarter has been very much in line with what you would have experienced. It depends contractually in the divisions. And some of the price increases, for example, in financial crime management, represent also the value of the engagement with our clients, represent the upsells. So you don't have, like, one way to look into it. But that being said, I would say it has been a nice contributor to our growth formula this quarter but also in the past.

Operator: Our next question comes from Ashish Sabadra with RBC Capital Markets.

Ashish Sabadra: Good morning. Question. Just on capital allocation, you talked about opportunistic deleveraging and buyback. I was just curious about the M&A pipeline, anything that you see from a tuck-in, any color that'll be helpful. Thanks.

Sarah Youngwood: Yeah. So we continue to have a lot of requests for general. I just wanted to the context of a billion nine of last twelve months free cash flow. So with that, we have lots of options, and we can do more than one thing. So if you start with supporting the business, reinvesting in the organic opportunities that we have in the business, that is the number one priority, and we're doing that very much. And we are very focused on fueling this revenue growth opportunity that you are seeing unfolding. The second part is the dividend, and we'll continue to have it be progressive.

And then beyond that, it's really being opportunistic between debt and share repurchases and a focus on inorganic growth trajectory for now.

Operator: This concludes today's question and answer session. I would like to turn the call back to Adena Friedman for closing remarks.

Adena Friedman: Well, thank you very much. Nasdaq continues to demonstrate the resilience of our diversified business, as well as the strength of our partnership and relationships with our clients. And we look forward to continuing to keep you updated on our progress in the quarters ahead. So thank you very much.

Operator: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.