Key Takeaways from Nasdaq’s Strong Q1'26 Earnings

Nasdaq’s (NDAQ) Q1 earnings report showed that the company delivered exceptional performance, with $1.4 billion in quarterly net revenue, an increase of 13% on an organic basis, and $1.1 billion in Solutions revenue. This marks the strongest first quarter start for organic growth in net revenue and operating income since 2021.

Nasdaq Chair and CEO Adena Friedman said, “We are very pleased with the performance and momentum across Nasdaq as we execute our strategy to modernize markets, power the innovation economy, and build trust in the financial system. ”

Key highlights include:

• Net revenue increased 14% to $1.4 billion year-over-year
• Annualized Recurring Revenue (ARR) increased 13% to $3.2 billion over the first quarter of 2025
• Capital Access Platforms and Market Services both saw 10% organic revenue growth, while Financial Technology revenue growth jumped 18%
• Annualized SaaS Revenue grew 16% year-over-year on an organic basis, representing 38% of ARR

During an interview with CNBC, Friedman said, "What we're finding is our clients are relying on us to help them transform and modernize their operations, their interactions with the markets, and to manage risk more effectively. And we're bringing both cloud and AI to our clients successfully."

Here are some additional highlights from the earnings report:

Strong Performance Across the Enterprise

• Financial Technology

The Financial Technology division delivered record organic revenue growth of 18%, signing 64 new clients, one cross-sell, and 85 upsells during the quarter.

Financial Crime Management Technology saw another robust quarter, signing 58 new small-and-medium bank clients, one enterprise expansion, and 2 enterprise renewals in the quarter.

Within Regulatory Technology, AxiomSL signings in the quarter represent more than double the total annualized contract value (ACV) bookings compared to the prior year period with approximately 90% of ACV bookings being cloud deployments.

Capital Markets Technology delivered an exceptional quarter with 20% organic revenue growth and 18% organic ARR growth.

• Market Services

Nasdaq Market Services generated record net revenues in the first quarter with record market volumes in U.S. equities and U.S. options, with Nasdaq’s index options revenue more than doubling in that time.

Additionally, Nasdaq is making strides forward with its Always-On Markets and its Tokenization programs (more on those below).

• Capital Access Platforms

Nasdaq welcomed 7 of the top 10 IPOs during the quarter, ultimately raising over $5 billion in proceeds. Nasdaq achieved a 71% win rate across eligible U.S. operating companies, direct listings, and SPAC business combinations.

Index revenue of $220 million grew 14% on both a reported and organic basis over the first quarter of 2025, with $79 billion of net inflows over the trailing twelve months.

Leading the AI Economy

Our new AI capabilities are generating client engagement and growth – with more AI innovations in the pipeline.

On CNBC, Friedman said, "AI is a core component of all the innovation we're bringing. So whether we can automate workflows for our clients, root out criminals more effectively, AI is an incredible capability that we're bringing across our products."

For example, our Agentic AI Workforce is now deployed by more than 500 clients, up over 40% since Investor Day, which was held in February.

Later this quarter, Nasdaq Verafin will begin rolling out our new Drug Trafficking analytic, which embeds generative AI directly into our models and synthesizes open source intelligence, social media, and third party research to help clients more effectively detect potential drug trafficking activity.

Always-On Markets

Early in the second quarter, the SEC approved Nasdaq’s proposal for 23/5 trading. Nasdaq plans to go live with 23/5 trading on December 6, 2026, broadening global investor access to U.S. equities.

The SEC approved Nasdaq’s proposal to enable tokenized equity settlement, designed to enhance market liquidity and collateral mobility while maintaining the trust and investor protections of highly regulated public markets.

Nasdaq also progressed its tokenization efforts with an equity token design proposal aimed at strengthening the connection between issuers and investors by modernizing governance, transparency, and shareholder engagement.

For the complete first quarter 2026 earnings press release, including reconciliations of U.S. GAAP to non-GAAP measures, read Nasdaq’s full Q1 2026 earnings release here.

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Information set forth in this communication contains forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Nasdaq cautions readers that any forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and that actual results could differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking information. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to (i) projections relating to our future financial results, growth, dividend program, trading volumes, products and services, ability to transition to new business models, taxes and achievement of synergy targets, (ii) statements about the closing or implementation dates and benefits of certain acquisitions, divestitures and other strategic, restructuring, technology, de-leveraging and capital allocation initiatives, (iii) statements about our integrations of our recent acquisitions, (iv) statements relating to any litigation or regulatory or government investigation or action to which we are or could become a party, and (v) other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties or other factors beyond Nasdaq’s control. These factors include, but are not limited to, Nasdaq’s ability to implement its strategic initiatives, economic, political and market conditions and fluctuations, geopolitical instability, government and industry regulation, interest rate risk and U.S. and global competition. Further information on these and other factors are detailed in Nasdaq’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual reports on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, which are available on Nasdaq’s investor relations website at http://ir.nasdaq.com and the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Nasdaq undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.