NDAQQueued from the May 25, 2026 S&P 500 market-cap snapshot ranks 201-225.

Nasdaq

Nasdaq operates securities exchanges and provides market technology, financial data, analytics, and index services.

CompaniesMarketCap Product analyses

Metadata

Where this company sits

Ticker: NDAQ
Rank snapshot: ≈ 210
Sector: Financials
Industry: Financial Exchanges & Data
Region: United States
Index: S&P 500 · Top 225 by market cap

Metrics

Scoring view

Every metric is paired with a short rationale. The numbers are deliberate, not divine.

Moat

86.0/10

Regulated exchange operation, issuer relationships, liquidity networks, market-data distribution, index brands, and financial technology contracts create a high switching-cost and trust-based moat.

Decentralizability

39.0/10

Analytics, index tooling, and some market-data workflows can be opened or federated, but official securities exchange functions remain constrained by regulation, surveillance, settlement, and liquidity concentration.

Profitability

77.0/10

Nasdaq reported record 2025 net revenue above $5.2 billion, ARR above $3.1 billion, and scalable recurring Solutions revenue, indicating a profitable financial infrastructure business.

Price / Earnings

27.0x

StockAnalysis reported a 3.74% earnings yield in its NDAQ financial ratios table, implying a roughly 26.7x earnings multiple; use as an approximate public-market valuation snapshot.

Market cap

$51.1B

CompaniesMarketCap reported Nasdaq's market capitalization at about $51.13 billion as of May 2026.

Freed-up capital potential

$0.0

Derived from market cap, moat resistance, decentralizability, and profitability. It is a directional estimate of value capture that could come under pressure if open alternatives compound.

Narrative

Why the company matters

A short editorial overview plus the current thesis on moat strength and decentralization pressure.

Exchange and data infrastructure

Nasdaq is both an exchange operator and a financial technology vendor. Its business spans U.S. equities markets, market services, index licensing, corporate platforms, and financial technology used by market participants.

The company's 2025 results show a business that has moved well beyond pure transaction fees: Nasdaq reported more than $5.2 billion of net revenue, with Solutions revenue above $4.0 billion and Market Services net revenue of about $1.2 billion.

Index and analytics layer

Nasdaq Indexes packages benchmark design, index calculation, licensing, and related data products around brands such as the Nasdaq-100. These products matter because they influence ETF flows, structured products, portfolio construction, and public-company visibility.

The same data and trust problem appears across the business: market participants need prices, listings, index rules, corporate actions, and surveillance to be timely, auditable, and broadly trusted.

Moat reading

Nasdaq's moat is strong because regulated exchange operation combines licenses, compliance infrastructure, issuer relationships, market-data distribution, colocation and connectivity, index brands, and deep integration with brokers, market makers, asset managers, and public companies.

The moat is not absolute. Trading venues compete on fees, liquidity, routing logic, and regulation, while open-source analytics and protocol-native markets can erode parts of the data, analytics, and venue-software stack. The hardest layer to decentralize is the legally recognized securities market with official listings, surveillance, and settlement interfaces.

Decentralization reading

Nasdaq's exchange business is structurally centralized because price formation, matching, listing standards, market surveillance, and regulatory reporting are coordinated by a licensed venue operator. That centralization creates accountability and institutional trust, but also concentrates control over access, rules, and data economics.

The most credible decentralization pressure is likely to come from adjacent layers first: open financial research tools, transparent index methodology tooling, federated market-data distribution, tokenized-security pilots, and peer-to-peer or protocol-based venues for assets that can legally settle outside a conventional national securities exchange.

Products

Where the moat actually touches users

These pages zoom into the products and services that matter most to each company, the alternatives already nibbling at them, and 4 structured disruption concepts across the current product set.

4 disruption concepts tracked0 documented exceptions

Nasdaq Stock Market

Regulated securities exchange

2 concepts

Nasdaq's U.S. equities business operates electronic securities exchanges for listings, trading, order routing, connectivity, and market services.

Open analysis

Nasdaq Indexes

Financial indexes and market data

2 concepts

Nasdaq Indexes designs, calculates, licenses, and distributes financial benchmarks and related market intelligence.

Open analysis

Technology waves

Strategic lenses

These are the repo's explicit bias terms: the technologies expected to keep making incumbents less inevitable over time.

Bitcoin and Lightning as coordination rails

Proof-of-work economics, programmable payment flows, and anti-spam pricing make more digital systems capable of rewarding signal while resisting abuse.

• Platforms that monetize gatekeeping could face pressure from protocol-native payment and reputation layers.
• Micropayments can replace some ad-funded or subscription-heavy distribution models.
• Open systems with credible anti-spam economics deserve a higher decentralizability score than legacy software assumptions suggest.

Paper trail