Nasdaq, Inc. NDAQis slated to report first-quarter 2018 results on Apr 25 before the market opens. Last quarter, the company delivered a positive surprise of 3.96%.
Let’s see, how things are shaping up for this announcement.
New client wins, solid backlog and favorable business trends are likely to have driven Market Services in the to-be-reported quarter.
Strategic acquisitions might have aided the top line.
U.S. equity options volume expanded 23.1% year over year to 474 million contracts, European options and futures volumes were 22.3 million contracts in the first quarter, up 2.8% year over year.
Also, non-transaction revenue base is likely to have improved, banking on the strength of market technology, listing and information revenues. These in turn have possibly boosted the top line in the quarter to be reported. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues is pegged at $644 million, up 10.5% year over year.
Non-transaction revenues are expected to have increased, driven by market technology, listing as well as information revenues. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Market technology revenues stands at $79 million, up 17.9% year over year while the same for listing services revenues is projected at $70 million, up 7.7% year over year.
A lower tax incidence, owing to tax reform implemented earlier this year, should provide an extra boost to the bottom line.
However, revenues per contract for U.S. equity options declined by a penny to 15 cents, though the same for European options and futures increased 11.9% to 47 cents.
What Our Quantitative Model Says
Our proven model shows that Nasdaq is likely to beat estimates this quarter. This is because the stock has the right combination of the two main ingredients — a positive Earnings ESP and a favorable Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) — to increase the odds of an earnings surprise.
Zacks ESP: Nasdaq has an Earnings ESPof +0.31%.