Curious what people here think about ICE — Intercontinental Exchange.
I’ve been looking at it more lately and it feels like one of those businesses that is easy to underrate because it doesn’t screen like a “cheap stock,” but the business quality is pretty obvious. They own critical financial market infrastructure: exchanges, clearing, NYSE, energy futures, fixed income/data services, mortgage tech, etc. The moat seems pretty durable to me. Once liquidity, clearing, benchmarks, and data workflows build around a platform, it is hard to displace. It’s not just “people trade on their exchange” — it’s more like ICE sits inside the plumbing of markets. That feels like a very good place to be. The growth angle I’m interested in is trading activity and data. Obviously trading volume can be cyclical and benefits from volatility, so I don’t want to overstate it. But structurally, the world seems to be getting more complex: energy markets, rates, fixed income electronification, passive/index products, risk management, data needs, etc. That should be a decent backdrop for ICE over time.
The main things I’m trying to think through are valuation, debt from acquisitions, and whether mortgage tech is really a great asset or just an okay one they paid up for. Also, is ICE truly comparable to CME/NDAQ/SPGI/MSCI-type compounders, or is that too generous? Not saying it’s screaming cheap, but it seems like a durable, high-quality compounder with more growth levers than people may give it credit for and that it may have unfairly repriced lower because of AI obsolescence or replacement fears.
What do you guys think? Am I missing somethingg obvious here, or is ICE one of the better long-term financial infrastructure businesses?