Edgar Filing: NASDAQ, INC.

Document

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

_______________________________

FORM 10-K



☒	ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
	For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018
OR
☐	TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
	For the transition period from ________ to ________

Commission file number: 000-32651

___________________________________

Nasdaq, Inc.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)



Delaware (State or Other Jurisdiction of Incorporation or Organization)	52-1165937 (I.R.S. Employer Identification No.)

One Liberty Plaza, New York, New York (Address of Principal Executive Offices)	10006 (Zip Code)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code:

+1 212 401 8700

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:



Title of each class	Name of each exchange on which registered
Common Stock, $.01 par value per share	The Nasdaq Stock Market

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Exchange Act. Yes ☐ No ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§229.405 of this chapter) is not contained herein, and will

not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any

amendment to this Form 10-K. ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.



Large accelerated filer	☒	Accelerated filer	☐
Non-accelerated filer	☐	Smaller reporting company	☐
Emerging growth company	☐

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ☐ No ☒

As of June 30, 2018, the aggregate market value of the registrant’s common stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant was approximately $10.5 billion (this amount represents approximately 114.8 million shares of Nasdaq, Inc.’s common stock based on the last reported sales price of $91.27 of the common stock on The Nasdaq Stock Market on such date).

Indicate the number of shares outstanding of each of the issuer’s classes of common stock, as of the latest practicable date.



Class		Outstanding at February 14, 2019
Common Stock, $.01 par value per share		165,420,039 shares

_____________________________________



DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
Document	Parts Into Which Incorporated
Certain portions of the Definitive Proxy Statement for the 2019 Annual Meeting of Stockholders	Part III

Nasdaq, Inc.



		Page
Part I.

Item 1.	Business	2

Item 1A.	Risk Factors	13

Item 1B.	Unresolved Staff Comments	26

Item 2.	Properties	26

Item 3.	Legal Proceedings	26

Item 4.	Mine Safety Disclosures	26

Part II.

Item 5.	Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities	26

Item 6.	Selected Financial Data	29

Item 7.	Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations	30

Item 7A.	Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk	55

Item 8.	Financial Statements and Supplementary Data	55

Item 9.	Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure	56

Item 9A.	Controls and Procedures	56

Item 9B.	Other Information	59

Part III.

Item 10.	Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance	59

Item 11.	Executive Compensation	59

Item 12.	Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters	59

Item 13.	Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence	59

Item 14.	Principal Accountant Fees and Services	60

Part IV.

Item 15.	Exhibits, Financial Statement Schedules	60

Item 16.	Form 10-K Summary	63

About This Form 10-K

Throughout this Form 10-K, unless otherwise specified:


•	“Nasdaq,” “we,” “us” and “our” refer to Nasdaq, Inc.


•	“Nasdaq Baltic” refers to collectively, Nasdaq Tallinn AS, Nasdaq Riga, AS, and AB Nasdaq Vilnius.


•	“Nasdaq BX” refers to the cash equity exchange operated by Nasdaq BX, Inc.


•	“Nasdaq BX Options” refers to the options exchange operated by Nasdaq BX, Inc.


•	“Nasdaq Clearing” refers to the clearing operations conducted by Nasdaq Clearing AB.


•	“Nasdaq GEMX” refers to the options exchange operated by Nasdaq GEMX, LLC.


•	“Nasdaq ISE” refers to the options exchange operated by Nasdaq ISE, LLC.


•	“Nasdaq MRX” refers to the options exchange operated by Nasdaq MRX, LLC.


•	“Nasdaq Nordic” refers to collectively, Nasdaq Clearing AB, Nasdaq Stockholm AB, Nasdaq Copenhagen A/S, Nasdaq Helsinki Ltd, and Nasdaq Iceland hf.


•	“Nasdaq PHLX” refers to the options exchange operated by Nasdaq PHLX LLC.


•	“Nasdaq PSX” refers to the cash equity exchange operated by Nasdaq PHLX LLC.

•“The Nasdaq Options Market” refers to the options exchange operated by The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC.


•	“The Nasdaq Stock Market” refers to the cash equity exchange operated by The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC.

* * * * * *

Nasdaq also provides as a tool for the reader the following list of abbreviations and acronyms that are used throughout this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

401(k) Plan: Voluntary Defined Contribution Savings Plan

2016 Credit Facility: $400 million senior unsecured term loan facility which matures on November 25, 2019

2017 Credit Facility: $1 billion senior unsecured revolving credit facility which matures on April 25, 2022

2019 Notes: $500 million aggregate principal amount of senior unsecured floating rate notes due March 22, 2019 with an interest rate equal to the three-month U.S. dollar LIBOR plus 0.39%

2020 Notes: $600 million aggregate principal amount of 5.55% senior unsecured notes due January 15, 2020

2021 Notes: €600 million aggregate principal amount of 3.875% senior unsecured notes due June 7, 2021

2023 Notes: €600 million aggregate principal amount of 1.75% senior unsecured notes due May 19, 2023

2024 Notes: $500 million aggregate principal amount of 4.25% senior unsecured notes due June 1, 2024

2026 Notes: $500 million aggregate principal amount of 3.85% senior unsecured notes due June 30, 2026

ASU: Accounting Standards Update

ATS: Alternative Trading System

BWise: BWise Beheer B.V. and its subsidiaries

CCP: Central Counterparty

CFTC: U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission

DEA: Designated Examining Authority

DWA: Dorsey, Wright & Associates, LLC

EMIR: European Market Infrastructure Regulation

Equity Plan: Nasdaq Equity Incentive Plan

ESPP: Nasdaq Employee Stock Purchase Plan

ETF: Exchange Traded Fund

ETP: Exchange Traded Product

eVestment: eVestment, Inc. and its subsidiaries

Exchange Act: Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended

FASB: Financial Accounting Standards Board

FICC: Fixed Income and Commodities Trading and Clearing

FINRA: Financial Industry Regulatory Authority

IPO: Initial Public Offering

ISE: U.S. Exchange Holdings, Inc. and its subsidiaries

LCH: LCH Group Holdings Limited

LIBOR: London Interbank Offered Rate

MiFID II: Update to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive

MiFIR: Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation

MTF: Multilateral Trading Facility

NFX: Nasdaq Futures, Inc.

NPM: The NASDAQ Private Market, LLC

NSCC: National Securities Clearing Corporation

OCC: The Options Clearing Corporation

OTC: Over-the-Counter

Proxy Statement: Nasdaq’s Definitive Proxy Statement for the 2019 Annual Meeting of Stockholders

PSU: Performance Share Unit

Regulation NMS: Regulation National Market System

Regulation SCI: Regulation Systems Compliance and Integrity

SEC: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

SERP: Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan

SFSA: Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority

SMARTS: SMARTS Group Holdings Pty

S&P: Standard & Poor’s

S&P 500: S&P 500 Stock Index

SRO: Self-regulatory Organization

SSMA: Swedish Securities Markets Act 2007:528

TSR: Total Shareholder Return

U.S. GAAP: U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles

UTP: Unlisted Trading Privileges

UTP Plan: Joint SRO Plan Governing the Collection, Consolidation, and Dissemination of Quotation and Transaction Information for Nasdaq-Listed Securities Traded on Exchanges on a UTP Basis

VAT: Value Added Tax

* * * * *

NASDAQ, the NASDAQ logos, and other brand, service or product names or marks referred to in this report are trademarks or services marks, registered or otherwise, of Nasdaq, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. FINRA and TRADE REPORTING FACILITY are registered trademarks of FINRA.

* * * * * *

This Annual Report on Form 10-K includes market share and industry data that we obtained from industry publications and surveys, reports of governmental agencies and internal company surveys. Industry publications and surveys generally state that the information they contain has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but we cannot assure you that this information is accurate or complete. We have not independently verified any of the data from third-party sources nor have we ascertained the underlying economic assumptions relied upon therein. Statements as to our market position are based on the most currently available market data. For market comparison purposes, The Nasdaq Stock Market data in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for IPOs is based on data generated internally by us, which includes best efforts underwritings; therefore, the data may not be comparable to other publicly-available IPO data. Data in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for new listings of equity securities on The Nasdaq Stock Market is based on data generated internally by us, which includes best efforts underwritings, issuers that switched from other listing venues, closed-end funds and ETPs. Data in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for IPOs and new listings of equity securities on the Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic exchanges also is based on data generated internally by us. IPOs and new listings data is presented as of period end. While we are not aware of any misstatements regarding industry data presented herein, our estimates involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change based on various factors, including those discussed in “Item 1A. Risk Factors” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

* * * * * *

Nasdaq intends to use its website, ir.nasdaq.com, as a means for disclosing material non-public information and for complying with SEC Regulation FD and other disclosure obligations. These disclosures will be included on Nasdaq’s website under “Investor Relations.”

Forward-Looking Statements

The SEC encourages companies to disclose forward-looking information so that investors can better understand a company’s future prospects and make informed investment decisions. This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains these types of statements. Words such as “may,” “will,” “could,” “should,” “anticipates,” “envisions,” “estimates,” “expects,” “projects,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes” and words or terms of similar substance used in connection with any discussion of future expectations as to industry and regulatory developments or business initiatives and strategies, future operating results or financial performance, and other future developments identify forward-looking statements. These include, among others, statements relating to:


•	our strategy, growth forecasts and 2019 outlook;


•	the integration of acquired businesses, including accounting decisions relating thereto;


•	the scope, nature or impact of acquisitions, divestitures, investments, joint ventures or other transactional activities;


•	the effective dates for, and expected benefits of, ongoing initiatives, including transactional activities and other strategic, restructuring, technology, de-leveraging and capital return initiatives;


•	our products, order backlog and services;


•	the impact of pricing changes;


•	tax matters;


•	the cost and availability of liquidity and capital; and


•	any litigation, or any regulatory or government investigation or action, to which we are or could become a party or which may affect us.

Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements include, among others, the following:


•	our operating results may be lower than expected;


•	our ability to successfully integrate acquired businesses or divest sold businesses or assets, including the fact that any integration or transition may be more difficult, time consuming or costly than expected, and we may be unable to realize synergies from business combinations, acquisitions, divestitures or other transactional activities;


•	loss of significant trading and clearing volumes or values, fees, market share, listed companies, market data products customers or other customers;


•	our ability to keep up with rapid technological advances and adequately address cybersecurity risks;


•	economic, political and market conditions and fluctuations, including interest rate and foreign currency risk, inherent in U.S. and international operations;


•	the performance and reliability of our technology and technology of third parties on which we rely;


•	any significant error in our operational processes;


•	our ability to continue to generate cash and manage our indebtedness; and


•	adverse changes that may occur in the litigation or regulatory areas, or in the securities markets generally.

Most of these factors are difficult to predict accurately and are generally beyond our control. You should consider the uncertainty and any risk related to forward-looking statements that we make. These risk factors are discussed under the caption “Item 1A. Risk Factors,” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this report. You should carefully read this entire Annual Report on Form 10-K, including “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” and the consolidated financial statements and the related notes. Except as required by the federal securities laws, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, release publicly any revisions to any forward-looking statements or report the occurrence of unanticipated events. For any forward-looking statements contained in any document, we claim the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

PART I

Item 1. Business

Overview

Nasdaq, Inc. is a leading provider of trading, clearing, marketplace technology, regulatory, securities listing, information and public and private company services. Our global offerings are diverse and include trading and clearing across multiple asset classes, trade management services, data products, financial indexes, capital formation solutions, corporate solutions, and market technology products and services. Our technology powers markets across the globe, supporting equity derivative trading, clearing and settlement, cash equity trading, fixed income trading, trading surveillance and many other functions.

History

Nasdaq was founded in 1971 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of FINRA. Beginning in 2000, FINRA restructured and broadened ownership in Nasdaq by selling shares to FINRA members, investment companies and issuers listed on The Nasdaq Stock Market. In connection with this restructuring, FINRA fully divested its ownership of Nasdaq in 2006, and The Nasdaq Stock Market became fully operational as an independent registered national securities exchange in 2007. In 2006, Nasdaq also reorganized its operations into a holding company structure.

In February 2008, Nasdaq and OMX AB combined their businesses. This transformational combination resulted in the expansion of our business from a U.S.-based exchange operator to a global exchange company offering technology that powers our own exchanges and markets as well as many other marketplaces around the world. In connection with this acquisition, we changed our corporate name to The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. We operated under this name until we rebranded our business as Nasdaq, Inc. in 2015.

Growth Strategy

Since our transformative combination with OMX AB in 2008, we have grown our business both organically and through acquisitions that have expanded our operations globally and increasingly diversified our product and service offerings. This evolution was driven by our ability to create opportunities in areas adjacent to our core businesses, many of which are non-transaction based and rooted in innovative technology. To keep pace with our understanding of future trends and to ensure our continued success in the evolving business environment, we have focused on refining our vision, mission and strategy:

Our Vision: We reimagine markets to realize the potential of tomorrow.

Our Mission: We bring together ingenuity, integrity and insights to deliver markets that accelerate economic progress and empower people to achieve their greatest ambitions.

Our Strategy: Our strategic direction is driven by our continuous examination of: (i) key macroeconomic, regulatory and technology trends, (ii) consultation with our clients about

short- and long-term trends in their businesses and (iii) the competitive landscape.

Under the strategic direction that we have been implementing over the past two years, we have focused on maximizing the resources, people and capital allocated to our largest growth opportunities, particularly in our Market Technology and Information Services businesses. In addition, we are committed to maintaining and enhancing the marketplace platform businesses that are core to Nasdaq, and reducing capital and resources in areas that we believe are not as strategic to our clients and have less growth potential within Nasdaq.

•

Increasing Investment in Businesses Where We See the Highest Growth Opportunity. We have increased investment in areas that we believe help solve our clients’ biggest challenges and are likely to generate growth for our stockholders. In 2018, these businesses included: the data analytics business within our Information Services segment, NPM, within our Corporate Services segment, and our Market Technology segment (including our regulatory technology business).

Consistent with this objective, we recently acquired eVestment and Quandl, Inc., which are part of our Information Services segment, and Sybenetix and Cinnober Financial Technology AB, or Cinnober, which are now part of our Market Technology segment. We also are investing further in the Market Technology segment through the Nasdaq Financial Framework, the expansion of our SMARTS products and customers, and our efforts to commercialize disruptive technologies, including blockchain, machine intelligence and the cloud.


•	Sustaining Our Foundation. As we strive to grow our business, we also have focused on enhancing our leadership position in the marketplaces in which we operate as we continue to innovate with new functionality and strong market share in our core markets.

•

Optimizing Slower Growth Businesses. We continually review areas that are not critical to our core. In these areas, we expect to target resiliency and efficiency versus growth, and free up resources when possible to redirect toward greater opportunities. In furtherance of this strategy, in April 2018 we sold the public relations (Public Relations Solutions) and webcasting and webhosting (Digital Media Services) businesses within our Corporate Solutions business to West Corporation. In addition, in December 2018, we sold our 5.0% ownership interest in LCH.

Products and Services

We manage, operate and provide our products and services in four business segments: Market Services, Corporate Services, Information Services and Market Technology.

Market Services

Our Market Services segment includes our Equity Derivative Trading and Clearing, Cash Equity Trading, FICC and Trade Management Services businesses.

Equity Derivative Trading and Clearing

We operate six electronic options exchanges in the U.S.: Nasdaq PHLX, The Nasdaq Options Market, Nasdaq BX Options, Nasdaq ISE, Nasdaq GEMX and Nasdaq MRX. These exchanges facilitate the trading of equity, ETF, index and foreign currency options. Together, our combined options market share in 2018 represented the largest share of the U.S. market for multiply-listed options on equities and ETFs. Our options trading platforms provide trading opportunities to both retail investors, algorithmic trading firms and market makers, who tend to prefer electronic trading, and institutional investors, who typically pursue more complex trading strategies and often trade on the floor.

In Europe, Nasdaq offers trading in derivatives, such as stock options and futures, index options and futures and fixed-income options and futures. Nasdaq Clearing offers clearing services for fixed-income options and futures, stock options and futures, index options and futures, and interest rate swaps by serving as the CCP. Nasdaq Clearing also operates a clearing service for the resale and repurchase agreement market.

Cash Equity Trading

In the U.S., we operate three cash equity exchanges: The Nasdaq Stock Market, Nasdaq BX and Nasdaq PSX. The Nasdaq Stock Market is the largest single venue of liquidity for trading U.S.-listed cash equities.

Our U.S. cash equity exchanges offer trading of both Nasdaq-listed and non-Nasdaq-listed securities. Market participants include market makers, broker-dealers, ATSs and registered securities exchanges. In addition, we operate a Canadian exchange with three independent markets, CXC, CX2 and CXD, for the trading of Canadian-listed securities.

In Europe, Nasdaq operates exchanges in Stockholm (Sweden), Copenhagen (Denmark), Helsinki (Finland), and Reykjavik (Iceland). We also operate exchanges in Tallinn (Estonia), Riga (Latvia) and Vilnius (Lithuania).

Collectively, the Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic exchanges offer trading in cash equities, depository receipts, warrants, convertibles, rights, fund units and ETFs. Our platform allows the exchanges to share the same trading system, which enables efficient cross-border trading and settlement, cross membership and a single source for Nordic data products. Settlement and registration of cash equity trading takes place in Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland via the local central securities depositories. In addition, Nasdaq owns two central securities depositories that provide notary, settlement, central maintenance and other services in the Baltic countries and Iceland.

FICC

Our FICC business includes the Nasdaq Fixed Income business, NFX and Nasdaq Commodities.

The U.S. portion of Nasdaq Fixed Income includes an electronic platform for trading U.S. Treasuries. The electronic trading platform provides real-time institutional trading of benchmark

U.S. Treasury securities. Through this business, we provide trading access to the U.S. Treasury securities market with an array of trading instruments to meet various investment goals across the fixed income spectrum.

The European portion of Nasdaq Fixed Income provides a wide range of products and services, such as trading and clearing, for fixed income products in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania and Latvia. Nasdaq Stockholm is the largest bond listing venue in the Nordics, with more than 7,000 listed retail and institutional bonds. In addition, Nasdaq Nordic facilitates the trading and clearing of Nordic fixed income derivatives in a unique market structure. Buyers and sellers agree to trades in fixed income derivatives through bilateral negotiations and then report those trades to Nasdaq Clearing for CCP clearing. Nasdaq Clearing acts as the counterparty to both the buyer and seller.

Nasdaq Commodities is the brand name for Nasdaq’s European commodity-related products and services. Nasdaq Commodities’ offerings include derivatives in oil, power, natural gas and carbon emission markets, tanker and dry cargo freight, seafood, iron ore, electricity certificates and clearing services. These products are listed on two of Nasdaq’s derivatives exchanges.

Nasdaq Oslo ASA, which is authorized by the Norwegian Ministry of Finance and supervised by the Norwegian Financial Supervisory Authority, is the commodity derivatives exchange for European products. All trades with Nasdaq Oslo ASA are subject to clearing with Nasdaq Clearing, which is a CCP authorized under EMIR by the SFSA to conduct clearing operations.

We also operate NFX, which is a U.S. based designated contract market authorized by the CFTC. NFX currently lists cash-settled derivatives in freight and energy (including oil, natural gas and U.S. power). All trades with NFX are subject to clearing with OCC.

Trade Management Services

We provide market participants with a wide variety of alternatives for connecting to and accessing our markets for a fee. Shifting connectivity from proprietary networks to third-party networks has significantly reduced technology and network costs and increased our systems’ scalability while maintaining performance and reliability.

Our marketplaces may be accessed via a number of different protocols used for quoting, order entry, trade reporting and connectivity to various data feeds. We also offer the Nasdaq Workstation, a browser-based, front-end interface that allows market participants to view data and enter orders, quotes and trade reports. In addition, we offer a variety of add-on compliance tools to help firms comply with regulatory requirements.

We provide co-location services to market participants, whereby we offer firms cabinet space and power to house their own equipment and servers within our data centers. Additionally, we offer a number of wireless connectivity routes between select data centers using millimeter wave and

microwave technology. We also earn revenues from annual and monthly exchange membership and registration fees.

Our broker services operations offer technology and customized securities administration solutions to financial participants in the Nordic market. Broker services provides services through a registered securities company that is regulated by the SFSA. Services primarily consist of flexible back-office systems, which allow customers to entirely or partly outsource their company’s back-office functions.

We offer customer and account registration, business registration, clearing and settlement, electronic Nordic mutual fund service, corporate action handling for reconciliations and reporting to authorities. Available services also include direct settlement with the Nordic central securities depositories, real-time updating and communication via the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) to deposit banks.

Corporate Services

Our Corporate Services businesses deliver critical capital market and governance solutions across the lifecycle of public and private companies.

Corporate Solutions

Our Corporate Solutions business serves corporate clients, including companies listed on our exchanges and private companies. We help organizations enhance their ability to understand and expand their global shareholder base, and improve corporate governance through our suite of advanced technology, analytics, and consultative services.

As of December 31, 2018, we provided Corporate Solutions products and services in the following key areas:

•

Investor Relations Intelligence. We offer a global team of consultative experts that deliver advisory services including Strategic Capital Intelligence, Shareholder Identification and Perception Studies as well as an industry-leading software, Nasdaq IR Insight®, to investor relations professionals. These solutions allow investor relations officers to better manage their investor relations programs, understand their investor base, target new investors, manage meetings and consume key data elements such as equity research, consensus estimates and news.


•	Board & Leadership. We provide a global technology offering that streamlines the meeting process for board of directors and executive leadership teams and helps them accelerate decision marking and strengthen governance. Our solutions protect sensitive data and facilitate productive collaboration, so board members and teams can work faster and more effectively.


•	Governance, Risk & Compliance. We offer a global suite of managed services and solutions for risk management, internal audit and regulatory compliance.

In April 2018, we sold the Public Relations Solutions and Digital Media Services products and services that formerly

were part of our Corporate Solutions business to West Corporation.

In February 2019, we entered into an agreement with SAI Global to sell BWise, our internal audit, regulatory compliance management, and operational risk management software that comprises our governance, risk and compliance product offering. Subject to regulatory approvals, works council and other representative body consultations and notifications in applicable jurisdictions, as well as other customary closing conditions, the transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2019.

Listing Services

We operate a variety of listing platforms around the world to provide multiple global capital raising solutions for private and public companies. Companies listed on our markets represent a diverse array of industries including, among others, health care, consumer products, telecommunication services, information technology, financial services, industrials and energy. Our main listing markets are The Nasdaq Stock Market and the Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic exchanges.

Companies seeking to list securities on The Nasdaq Stock Market must meet minimum listing requirements, including specified financial and corporate governance criteria. Once listed, companies must meet continued listing standards. The Nasdaq Stock Market currently has three listing tiers: The Nasdaq Global Select Market, The Nasdaq Global Market and The Nasdaq Capital Market. All three market tiers maintain rigorous listing and corporate governance standards (both initial and ongoing).

As of December 31, 2018, a total of 3,058 companies listed securities on The Nasdaq Stock Market, with 1,418 listings on The Nasdaq Global Select Market, 852 on The Nasdaq Global Market and 788 on The Nasdaq Capital Market.

We aggressively pursue new listings from companies, including those undergoing IPOs as well as companies seeking to switch from alternative exchanges. In 2018, The Nasdaq Stock Market attracted 303 new listings, including 186 IPOs, representing 72% of U.S. IPOs in 2018. The new listings were comprised of the following:



Switches from the New York Stock Exchange LLC, or NYSE, and NYSE American LLC, or NYSE American	18
IPOs	186
Upgrades from OTC	43
ETPs and Other Listings	56
Total	303

The 18 NYSE or NYSE American listed companies that switched to The Nasdaq Stock Market, represented approximately $111.3 billion in market capitalization. Notable switches included Xcel Energy, Inc., United Continental Holdings, Inc., and Regency Centers Corporation.

We also offer listings on the exchanges that comprise Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic. For smaller companies and growth

companies, we offer access to the financial markets through the Nasdaq First North alternative marketplaces. As of December 31, 2018, a total of 1,019 companies listed securities on our Nordic and Baltic exchanges and Nasdaq First North.

Our European listing customers include companies, funds and governments. Customers issue securities in the form of cash equities, depository receipts, warrants, ETPs, convertibles, rights, options, bonds or fixed-income related products. In 2018, a total of 73 new companies listed on our Nordic and Baltic exchanges and Nasdaq First North. In addition, 13 companies upgraded their listings from Nasdaq First North to the Nordic and Baltic exchanges.

Our Listing Services business also includes NPM, which provides liquidity solutions for private companies and private funds. NPM’s platform helps employees, investors, companies, funds and institutions execute transactions, whether for private companies, private investment funds, or other private asset classes.

In December 2018, we launched a Corporate Bond exchange for the listing and trading of corporate bonds. The new exchange operates pursuant to The Nasdaq Stock Market exchange license and is powered by the Nasdaq Financial Framework, similar to the Nasdaq Fixed Income platform. Surveillance is conducted by the Nasdaq regulatory team, assisted by our SMARTS surveillance solution.

Information Services

Beginning in the second quarter of 2018, our Information Services segment was recategorized into the following businesses:


•	Market Data;


•	Index; and


•	Investment Data & Analytics.

Prior to the second quarter, our Information Services segment was comprised of our Data Products and our Index Licensing and Services businesses.

Market Data

Our Market Data business sells and distributes historical and real-time quote and trade information to the sell-side, the buy-side, retail online brokers, proprietary trading shops, other venues, internet portals and data distributors. Our market data products enhance transparency of market activity within our exchanges and provide critical information to professional and non-professional investors globally.

We collect, process and create information and earn revenues as a distributor of our own, as well as select, third-party content. We provide varying levels of quote and trade information to our customers who in turn provide subscriptions for this information. Our systems enable distributors to gain access to our market depth, mutual fund valuation, order imbalances, market sentiment and other analytical data.

We distribute this proprietary market information to both market participants and non-participants through a number of

proprietary products, including Nasdaq TotalView, our flagship market depth quote product. TotalView shows subscribers quotes, orders and total anonymous interest at every displayed price level in The Nasdaq Stock Market for Nasdaq-listed securities and critical data for the opening, closing, halt and IPO crosses. We also offer TotalView products for our Nasdaq BX, Nasdaq PSX, Nasdaq Fixed Income and other Nordic markets.

We operate several other proprietary services and data products to provide market information, including Nasdaq Basic, a low cost alternative to the industry Level 1 feed and Nasdaq Canada Basic, a low cost alternative to other high priced data feeds. We also provide a plethora of other data, including data relating to our six U.S. options exchanges, Nordic and U.S. futures, Nordic commodities, and U.S. Treasuries.

Our Market Data business also includes revenues from U.S. tape plans. The plan administrators sell quotation and last sale information for all transactions in Nasdaq-listed securities, whether traded on The Nasdaq Stock Market or other exchanges, to market participants and to data distributors, who then provide the information to subscribers. After deducting costs, the plan administrators distribute the tape revenues to the respective plan participants based on a formula required by Regulation NMS that takes into account both trading and quoting activity.

The Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic exchanges, as well as Nasdaq Commodities, also offer data products and services. These data products and services provide critical market transparency to professional and non-professional investors who participate in European marketplaces and, at the same time, give investors greater insight into these markets.

Much like the U.S. products, European data products and services are based on trading information from the Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic exchanges, as well as Nasdaq Commodities, for the following classes of assets: cash equities, bonds, derivatives and commodities. We provide varying levels of quote and trade information to market participants and to data distributors, who in turn provide subscriptions for this information. Significant European data products include Nordic Equity TotalView, Nordic Derivative TotalView, and Nordic Fixed Income TotalView, Level 2, Analytics and Fixings.

Index

Our Index business develops and licenses Nasdaq-branded indexes, associated derivatives, and financial products and also provides custom calculation services for third-party clients. License fees for our trademark licenses vary by product based on a percentage of underlying assets, dollar value of a product issuance, number of products or number of contracts traded. We also license cash-settled options, futures and options on futures on our indexes.

As of December 31, 2018, we had 365 ETPs licensed to Nasdaq’s indexes which had $172 billion in assets under management. Our flagship index, the Nasdaq-100 Index, includes the top 100 non-financial securities listed on The Nasdaq Stock Market.

We provide index data products based on Nasdaq indexes. Index data products include our Global Index Data Service, which delivers real-time index values throughout the trading day, and Global Index Watch/Global Index File Delivery Service, which delivers weightings and components data, corporate actions and a breadth of additional data. We also operate the Nasdaq Global Index Family, which includes more than 40,000 indexes. The family consists of global securities broken down by market segment, region, country, size and sector. The Nasdaq Global Index Family covers 45 countries and approximately 9,000 securities.

Nasdaq Dorsey Wright, or NDW, a market leader in data analytics, passive indexing, smart beta strategies, provides model-based strategies and analysis to support the financial advisor community, as well as Systematic Relative Strength strategies to manage separately and unified managed accounts. NDW strengthens Nasdaq’s position as a leading smart beta index provider in the U.S. As of December 31, 2018, there were $7 billion in assets under management, or AUM, in ETPs that track Nasdaq smart beta indexes and $2 billion in AUM and assets under advisement tracking NDW investment strategies and research.

Investment Data & Analytics

Our Investment Data & Analytics business is a leading content and analytics cloud-based solutions provider used by asset managers, investment consultants and asset owners to help facilitate better investment decisions. Through eVestment, we offer leading content and analytics used by asset managers, investment consultants and asset owners to help facilitate institutional investment decisions. eVestment provides a flexible suite of cloud-based solutions to help the institutional investing community identify and capitalize on global investment trends and select and monitor investment managers. eVestment’s products also enable asset managers to market their funds worldwide. Additionally the Nasdaq Fund Network gathers and distributes daily net asset values from over 35,000 funds and other investment vehicles across North America.

In November 2018, we acquired Quandl, Inc., a premier marketplace for unique, alpha-generating alternative datasets as well as for economic and financial datasets.

Market Technology

Powering over 100 market infrastructure operators in more than 50 countries, our Market Technology business is a leading global technology solutions provider and partner to exchanges, clearing organizations, central securities depositories, regulators, banks, brokers, buy-side firms and corporate businesses. Our solutions can handle a wide array of assets, including but not limited to cash equities, equity derivatives, currencies, various interest-bearing securities, commodities, energy products and digital currencies. Our solutions can also be used in the creation of new asset classes, and in 2018, Nasdaq partnered with non-capital markets customers, including those in insurance liabilities securitization and digital advertising futures trading.

Nasdaq’s market technology is utilized by leading markets in the U.S., Europe and Asia as well as emerging markets in the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. Additionally, more than 160 market participants leverage our surveillance technology globally to manage their integrity obligations and assist them in complying with market rules, regulations and internal market surveillance policies.

In January 2019, we completed a public offer to acquire Cinnober, a major Swedish financial technology provider to brokers, exchanges and clearinghouses worldwide that provides technology solutions similar and complimentary to our Market Technology business. We expect the integration of Cinnober into our business to strengthen our position as a leading market infrastructure technology provider.

Market Infrastructure Operators (MIO) & New Markets Portfolio

For MIO’s, we provide and deliver mission-critical solutions across the trade lifecycle via the Nasdaq Financial Framework, which is our flexible and modular architecture and technology that provides next generation capital markets capabilities in an open and agile environment. The Nasdaq Financial Framework is designed to cover all aspects of a market operator’s needs, from trading and clearing to risk management, market surveillance, index development, data, management, testing and quality assurance. During 2018, we continued to invest in the Nasdaq Financial Framework by enabling emerging technologies, including integrating blockchain technology for issuance and settlement of securities, cloud-enabled trading and clearing, and other blockchain and machine learning applications.

In 2018, we launched our New Markets initiative, which is focused on extending the Nasdaq Financial Framework’s capabilities outside of capital markets. Market Technology currently offers its services to a loyalty points exchange, digital advertising exchange, reinsurance market and three horse racing operators.

Many MIO and New Markets projects involve complex delivery management and systems integration. Through our integration services, we can assume responsibility for projects that involve migration to a new system and the establishment of entirely new marketplaces. We also offer operation and support for the applications, systems platforms, networks and other components included in an information technology solution, as well as advisory services.

Buy- and Sell-side Portfolio

In 2018, we continued to make progress in expanding our Nasdaq Financial Framework offering to the bank and broker community. Regulatory pressure across multiple jurisdictions has made outsourcing of front-office infrastructure an attractive option for sell-side organizations and, as a result, we offer trading and execution infrastructure for systematic internalizers, single-dealers platforms and both multi-lateral and organized trading facilities.

We also continue to gain market share for our SMARTS Trade Surveillance solution, which is a managed service designed for brokers and other market participants to assist them in complying with market rules, regulations and internal market surveillance policies, and TradeGuard, which is a suite of products that offer a real-time, multi-tiered risk solution that integrates pre-, at- and on-trade risk management, including margining. In 2018, SMARTS received four industry awards and is now used by over 160 client firms globally. In 2018, we completed the integration of Sybenetix, our market surveillance and fair investor allocation solution for the buy-side, and have begun deploying this solution to an expanded customer base.

Technology

Technology plays a key role in ensuring the growth, reliability and regulation of financial markets. We have established a technology risk program to evaluate the resiliency of critical systems, including risks associated with cybersecurity. This program is focused on (i) identifying areas for improvement in systems and (ii) implementing changes and upgrades to technology and processes to minimize future risk. We have continued our focus on improving the security of our technology with an emphasis on employee awareness through training, targeted phishing campaigns, and new tool deployment for our securities operations team. See “Item 1A. Risk Factors,” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for further discussion.

Core Technology. The Nasdaq Financial Framework is Nasdaq’s approach to delivering end-to-end solutions for market infrastructure operators, buy-side firms, sell-side firms and other non-financial markets. The framework consists of a single operational core platform that ties together Nasdaq’s portfolio of functionality across the trade lifecycle, in an open framework whereby exchanges, clearinghouses, CSDs and other entities can easily integrate Nasdaq’s business applications with each other, as well as other third-party solutions. In addition to being able to integrate a broad range of business functions, the Nasdaq Financial Framework enables end users to leverage recent technology developments, such as blockchain and machine learning. During 2018, Nasdaq Fixed Income was replatformed using the Nasdaq Financial Framework Core Platform.

Competitive Strengths

We are a global financial technology company that in recent years, through building on capital markets experience, technological expertise, and clear understanding of our client's needs, has diversified its product and service offerings.

A Unique Value Proposition

We operate a diverse and resilient capital markets franchise with a marketplace core. Our businesses provide capital-markets infrastructure services to industry players, allowing us to:


•	Develop efficient and reliable technologies to facilitate capital markets activity;


•	Manage the complexities and costs of business on a global scale; and


•	Provide data, tools and insights that drive sound decision making.

Technological Strength

We are living through a time where innovative technologies are transforming financial services. We have come a long way in trading since Nasdaq launched the first fully electronic exchange in 1971 and we see forces accelerating that will bring major changes to the capital markets. The strength and resiliency of our technology, enhanced by our leading Market Technology business, in meeting the advancing demands of our global customer base is vital to the continued success of our business and distinguishes us from our competitors.

A Focus on Client Needs Throughout the Marketplace

We strive to serve a diverse range of clients by:


•	Brokers and Traders - Helping brokers and traders to confidently plan, optimize and execute their business vision.


•	Market Participants - Enabling market participants to monitor and capitalize on real-time market changes.


•	Investors and Asset Managers - Offering products and services to assist investors and asset managers in optimizing their portfolios and offerings.


•	Listed Companies - Promoting the capital health of our listed companies.


•	Private Companies - Working with private companies to meet liquidity needs, manage relationships with long-term institutional investors and oversee their entire equity program.


•	Market Infrastructure Players - Assisting market infrastructure players (exchanges, regulators, clearinghouses, and Central Securities Depositories) in increasing efficiency, meeting customer needs and growing revenue.


•	Capital-Markets - Delivering efficiencies through economies of scale (cost, speed, connectivity) to all members of the capital-markets ecosystem.

Competition

Market Services

We face intense competition in North America and Europe in businesses that comprise our Market Services segment. We seek to provide market participants with greater functionality, trading system stability, speed of execution, high levels of customer service, and efficient pricing. In both North America and Europe, our competitors include other exchange operators, operators of non-exchange trading systems and banks and brokerages that operate their own internal trading pools and platforms.

In the U.S., our options markets compete with exchanges operated by Cboe Global Markets, Inc., or CBOE, Miami International Holdings, Inc., or Miami, and Intercontinental Exchange, Inc., or ICE. In cash equities, we compete with

exchanges operated by CBOE and ICE. In addition, competitors recently have launched, or announced a plan to launch, new exchanges, including one to be established by a group of our customers. In equities we also face competition from ATSs and other less-heavily regulated broker-owned systems, some of which are also known as “dark pools,” and from other types of OTC trading. In Canada, our cash equities exchange competes with exchanges such as the Toronto Stock Exchange, or TSX, and other marketplaces.

In Europe, our cash equities markets compete with exchanges such as CBOE, Euronext N.V., Deutsche Börse A.G. and London Stock Exchange Group plc, or LSE, and MTFs. Our competitors in the trading and clearing of options and futures on European equities include the Eurex Group companies, or Eurex, ICE Futures Europe and the MTFs. In addition, in equities we face competition from other broker-owned systems, some of which are also known as systematic internalizers, and from other types of OTC trading. Competition among exchanges for trading European equity derivatives tends to occur where there is competition in the trading of the underlying equities. In addition to exchange-based competition, we face competition from OTC derivative markets.

The implementation of MiFID II and MiFIR is expected to lead to further competitive pressure on our European trading business. MTFs are already attracting a significant share of electronically matched volume. With the regulatory environment likely to become more favorable to alternative trading venues, we expect such venues to compete aggressively for the trading of equity securities listed on our Nordic exchanges. Electronic trading systems pursuing block business also remain active in Europe. Trading on systematic internalizers has increased markedly as volume migrates from other types of trading venues. In responding to current and potential competition, we constantly review our pricing and product offerings.

Our FICC business also operates in an intensely competitive environment. Our trading platform for benchmark U.S. treasuries faces competition from both long-established competitors, such as Brokertec, and newly emerging electronic and voice brokerages, and the operating environment remains extremely challenging. Our European fixed income products and services are subject to relentless competitive pressure from OTC dealers as well as exchanges. Our suite of commodity-related products and services is in many cases designed to challenge the more established players.

Our Trade Management Services business competes with other exchange operators, extranet providers, and data center providers.

Corporate Services

In our Corporate Solutions business, competition is varied and can be fragmented. For our Investor Relations Intelligence business, there are many regional competitors and relatively few global providers. Other exchange operators are partnering with firms that have capabilities in this area and seeking to acquire relevant assets in order to provide investor relations

services to customers alongside listing services. The competitive landscape for our Governance Solutions business varies by customer sector and geography. Most participants offer software-as-a-service solutions that are supported by a data center strategy. Some firms offer specialized services that focus on a single niche sector. The larger players often offer additional services. Customers frequently seek single-source providers that are able to address a broad range of needs within a single platform.

Our Listing Services business in both the U.S. and Europe provides a means of facilitating capital formation through public capital markets. There are competing ways of raising capital, and we seek to demonstrate the benefits of listing shares on an exchange. Our primary competitor for larger company stock share listings in the U.S. is NYSE. The Nasdaq Stock Market competes with local and international markets located outside the U.S. for listings of equity securities of both U.S. and non-U.S. companies that choose to list (or dual-list) outside of their home country. For example, The Nasdaq Stock Market competes for listings with exchanges in Europe and Asia, such as LSE and The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited.

The Listings Services business in Europe is characterized by a large number of exchanges competing for new or secondary listings. Each country has one or more national exchanges, which are often the first choice of companies in each respective country. For those considering an alternative, competing European exchanges that frequently attract many listings from outside their respective home countries include LSE, Euronext N.V. and Deutsche Börse A.G. In addition to the larger exchanges, companies seeking capital or liquidity from public capital markets are able to raise capital without a regulated market listing and can consider trading their shares on smaller markets and quoting facilities.

In risk intelligence, our products must compete with solutions that are often part of larger suites, such as those related to information technology management or general business management.

Information Services

Our Market Data business in the U.S. includes both proprietary and consolidated data products. Proprietary data products are made up exclusively of data derived from each exchange’s systems. Consolidated data products are distributed by SEC-mandated consolidators (one for Nasdaq-listed stocks and another for NYSE and other-listed stocks) that share the revenue among the exchanges that contribute data. In Europe, all data products are proprietary as there is no official data consolidator. Competition in the data business is intense and is influenced by rapidly changing technology and the creation of new product and service offerings.

The sale of our proprietary data products in both the U.S. and Europe is under competitive threat from alternative exchanges and trading venues that offer similar products. Our data business competes with other exchanges and third party vendors to provide information to market participants. Examples of our

competitors in proprietary data products are ICE, CBOE, TSX, and Dow Jones & Company.

The consolidated data business is under competitive pressure from other securities exchanges that trade Nasdaq-listed securities. In addition, The Nasdaq Stock Market similarly competes for the tape fees from the sale of information on securities listed on other markets.

Our Index business faces competition from providers of various competing financial indexes. For example, there are a number of indexes that aim to track the technology sector and thereby compete with the Nasdaq-100 Index and the Nasdaq Composite Index. We face competition from investment banks, dedicated index providers, markets and other product developers.

Our Investment Data & Analytics faces competition from a broad array of data and analytics suppliers, both established firms and small start-ups. The majority of the competitors today are offering only a portion of the solutions that we offer. Our primary competitors are Morningstar, Factset, Mercer and any number of smaller firms along with start-up data providers and aggregators. Additionally other large providers to the financial services industry such as Bloomberg and Refinitiv are believed to be interested in pursuing certain aspects of the services we provide.

Market Technology

Traditionally, exchanges and exchange-related businesses internally developed technology, sometimes aided by consultants. However, over time this model has changed as many operators have recognized the cost-savings made possible by buying technology from third parties. As a result, two types of competitors have emerged in our Market Technology segment: exchange operators and technology providers unaffiliated with exchanges. These organizations make available a range of off-the-shelf technology, including trading, clearing, market surveillance, settlement, depository and information dissemination, and offer customization and operation expertise. Market conditions in Market Technology are evolving rapidly, which makes continuous investment and innovation a necessity.

A wide range of providers compete with us in surveillance. In surveillance, standardization of products and budget pressures drive customers to focus on pricing.

Intellectual Property

We believe that our intellectual property assets are important for maintaining the competitive differentiation of our products, systems, software and services, enhancing our ability to access technology of third parties and maximizing our return on research and development investments.

To support our business objectives and benefit from our investments in research and development, we actively create and maintain a wide array of intellectual property assets, including patents and patent applications related to our innovations, products and services; trademarks related to our brands, products and services; copyrights in software and creative content; trade secrets; and through other intellectual

property rights, licenses of various kinds and contractual provisions. We enter into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with our employees and contractors, and utilize non-disclosure agreements with third parties with whom we conduct business in order to secure and protect our proprietary rights and to limit access to, and disclosure of, our proprietary information.

We own, or have licensed, rights to trade names, trademarks, domain names and service marks that we use in conjunction with our operations and services. We have registered many of our most important trademarks in the U.S. and in foreign countries. For example, our primary “Nasdaq” mark is a registered trademark that we actively seek to protect in the U.S. and in over 50 other countries worldwide.

Over time, we have accumulated a robust portfolio of issued patents in the U.S. and in many other jurisdictions across the world. We currently hold rights to patents relating to certain aspects of our products, systems, software and services, but we primarily rely on the innovative skills, technical competence and marketing abilities of our personnel. No single patent is in itself core to the operations of Nasdaq or any of its principal business areas.

Corporate Venture Practice

We operate a corporate venture program to make minority investments primarily in emerging growth financial technology companies that are strategically relevant to, and aligned with, Nasdaq. Investments are made through the venture program to further our organic research and development efforts and accelerate the path to commercial viability. We expect that capital invested will continue to be modest and will not have a material impact on our consolidated financial statements, existing capital return or deployment priorities.

Regulation

We are subject to extensive regulation in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

U.S. Regulation

U.S. federal securities laws establish a system of cooperative regulation of securities markets, market participants and listed companies. SROs conduct the day-to-day administration and regulation of the nation’s securities markets under the close supervision of, and subject to extensive regulation, oversight and enforcement by, the SEC. SROs, such as national securities exchanges, are registered with the SEC.

This regulatory framework applies to our U.S. business in the following ways:


•	regulation of our registered national securities exchanges; and


•	regulation of our U.S. broker-dealer and investment advisor subsidiaries.

National Securities Exchanges. SROs in the securities industry are an essential component of the regulatory scheme of the Exchange Act for providing fair and orderly markets and

protecting investors. The Exchange Act and the rules thereunder, as well as each SRO’s own rules, impose many regulatory and operational responsibilities on SROs, including the day-to-day responsibilities for market and broker-dealer oversight. Moreover, an SRO is responsible for enforcing compliance by its members, and persons associated with its members, with the provisions of the Exchange Act, the rules and regulations thereunder, and the rules of the SRO, including rules and regulations governing the business conduct of its members.

Nasdaq currently operates three cash equity, six options markets and one corporate bond market in the U.S. We operate The Nasdaq Stock Market, The Nasdaq Options Market and the Corporate Bond Market pursuant to The Nasdaq Stock Market’s SRO license; Nasdaq BX and Nasdaq BX Options pursuant to Nasdaq BX’s SRO license; Nasdaq PSX and Nasdaq PHLX pursuant to Nasdaq PHLX’s SRO license; and Nasdaq ISE, Nasdaq GEMX and Nasdaq MRX, each operates an options market under its own SRO license. As SROs, each entity has separate rules pertaining to its broker-dealer members and listed companies. Broker-dealers that choose to become members of our exchanges are subject to the rules of those exchanges.

All of our U.S. national securities exchanges are subject to SEC oversight, as prescribed by the Exchange Act, including periodic and special examinations by the SEC. Our exchanges also are potentially subject to regulatory or legal action by the SEC at any time in connection with alleged regulatory violations. We have been subject to a number of routine reviews and inspections by the SEC or external auditors in the ordinary course, and we have been and may in the future be subject to SEC enforcement proceedings. To the extent such actions or reviews and inspections result in regulatory or other changes, we may be required to modify the manner in which we conduct our business, which may adversely affect our business.

Section 19 of the Exchange Act provides that our exchanges must submit to the SEC proposed changes to any of the SROs’ rules, practices and procedures, including revisions to provisions of our certificate of incorporation and by-laws that constitute SRO rules. The SEC will typically publish such proposed changes for public comment, following which the SEC may approve or disapprove the proposal, as it deems appropriate. SEC approval requires a finding by the SEC that the proposal is consistent with the requirements of the Exchange Act and the rules and regulations thereunder. Pursuant to the requirements of the Exchange Act, our exchanges must file with the SEC, among other things, all proposals to change their pricing structure.

Pursuant to regulatory services agreements between FINRA and our SROs, FINRA provides certain regulatory services to our markets, including the regulation of trading activity and surveillance and investigative functions. Nevertheless, we have a direct regulatory role in conducting certain real-time market monitoring, certain equity surveillance not involving cross-market activity, most options surveillance, most rulemaking and some membership functions through our Nasdaq Regulation department. We review suspicious trading behavior discovered

by our regulatory staff, and depending on the nature of the activity, may refer the activity to FINRA for further investigation. Our SROs retain ultimate regulatory responsibility for all regulatory activities performed under regulatory agreements by FINRA, and for fulfilling all regulatory obligations for which FINRA does not have responsibility under the regulatory services agreements.

In addition to its other SRO responsibilities, The Nasdaq Stock Market, as a listing market, also is responsible for overseeing each listed company’s compliance with The Nasdaq Stock Market’s financial and corporate governance standards. Our listing qualifications department evaluates applications submitted by issuers interested in listing their securities on The Nasdaq Stock Market to determine whether the quantitative and qualitative listing standards have been satisfied. Once securities are listed, the listing qualifications department monitors each issuer’s on-going compliance with The Nasdaq Stock Market’s continued listing standards.

Broker-dealer regulation. Nasdaq’s broker-dealer subsidiaries are subject to regulation by the SEC, the SROs and various state securities regulators. Nasdaq operates five broker-dealers: Nasdaq Execution Services, LLC, Execution Access, LLC, NPM Securities, SMTX, LLC, and Nasdaq Capital Markets Advisory LLC. Each broker-dealer is registered with the SEC, a member of FINRA and registered in the U.S. states and territories required by the operation of its business.

Nasdaq Execution Services operates as our routing broker for sending orders from Nasdaq's U.S. cash equity and options exchanges to other venues for execution. SMTX acts as an intermediary to facilitate closings of, and introduce prospective accredited investors in connection with, private non-capital raising transactions. Nasdaq Capital Markets Advisory acts as a third-party advisor to privately-held or publicly-traded companies during IPOs and various other offerings.,

Two of our broker-dealers also are registered with the SEC as an ATS. Execution Access operates as the broker-dealer for our fixed income business, including Nasdaq Fixed Income’s registered ATS for U.S. Treasury securities. NPM Securities operates an ATS that facilitates the purchase and sale of ownership interests in primary and secondary transactions in certain funds (both registered or not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940), business development companies, certain closed end funds and private real estate investment funds.

The SEC, FINRA and the exchanges adopt rules and examine broker-dealers and require strict compliance with their rules and regulations. The SEC, SROs and state securities commissions may conduct administrative proceedings which can result in censures, fines, the issuance of cease-and-desist orders or the suspension or expulsion of a broker-dealer, its officers or employees. The SEC and state regulators may also institute proceedings against broker-dealers seeking an injunction or other sanction. All broker-dealers have an SRO that is assigned by the SEC as the broker-dealer’s DEA. The DEA is responsible for examining a broker-dealer for compliance with the SEC’s

financial responsibility rules. FINRA is the current DEA for each of our broker-dealer subsidiaries.

Our registered broker-dealers are subject to regulatory requirements intended to ensure their general financial soundness and liquidity, which require that they comply with certain minimum capital requirements. As of December 31, 2018, each of our broker-dealers were in compliance with all of the applicable capital requirements.

Regulatory contractual relationships with FINRA. Our SROs have signed a series of regulatory service agreements covering the services FINRA provides to the respective SROs. Under these agreements, FINRA personnel act as our agents in performing the regulatory functions outlined above, and FINRA bills us a fee for these services. These agreements have enabled us to reduce our headcount while ensuring that the markets for which we are responsible are properly regulated. However, our SROs retain ultimate regulatory responsibility for all regulatory activities performed under these agreements by FINRA.

Exchange Act Rule 17d-2 permits SROs to enter into agreements, commonly called Rule 17d-2 agreements, approved by the SEC with respect to enforcement of common rules relating to common members. Our SROs have entered into several such agreements under which FINRA assumes regulatory responsibility for specifics covered by the agreement, including:


•	agreements with FINRA covering the enforcement of common rules, the majority of which relate to the regulation of common members of our SROs and FINRA;


•	joint industry agreements with FINRA covering responsibility for enforcement of insider trading rules;


•	joint industry agreement with FINRA covering enforcement of rules related to cash equity sales practices and certain other non-market related rules; and


•	joint industry agreement covering enforcement of rules related to options sales practices.

Regulation NMS and Options Intermarket Linkage Plan. We are subject to Regulation NMS for our cash equity markets, and our options markets have joined the Options Intermarket Linkage Plan. These are designed to facilitate the routing of orders among exchanges to create a national market system as mandated by the Exchange Act. One of the principal purposes of a national market system is to assure that brokers may execute investors’ orders at the best market price. Both Regulation NMS and the Options Intermarket Linkage Plan require that exchanges avoid trade-throughs, locking or crossing of markets and provide market participants with electronic access to the best prices among the markets for the applicable cash equity or options order.

In addition, Regulation NMS requires that every national securities exchange on which an NMS stock is traded and every national securities association act jointly pursuant to one or more national market system plans to disseminate consolidated information, including a national best bid and national best offer, on quotations for transactions in NMS stocks, and that

such plan or plans provide for the dissemination of all consolidated information for an individual NMS stock through a single plan processor.

The UTP Plan was filed with and approved by the SEC as a national market system plan in accordance with the Exchange Act and Regulation NMS to provide for the collection, consolidation and dissemination of such information for Nasdaq-listed securities. The Nasdaq Stock Market serves as the processor for the UTP Plan pursuant to a contract that was extended for a five-year term beginning in October 2015. The Nasdaq Stock Market also serves as the administrator for the UTP Plan. To fulfill its obligations as the processor, The Nasdaq Stock Market has designed, implemented, maintained, and operated a data processing and communications system, hardware, and software and communications infrastructure to provide processing for the UTP Plan. As the administrator, The Nasdaq Stock Market manages the distribution of market data, the collection of the resulting market data revenue, and the dissemination of that revenue to plan members in accordance with the terms of the UTP Plan and of Regulation NMS.

Regulation SCI. Regulation SCI is a set of rules designed to strengthen the technology infrastructure of the U.S. securities markets. Regulation SCI applies to national securities exchanges, operators of certain ATSs, market data information providers and clearing agencies, subjecting these entities to extensive new compliance obligations, with the goals of reducing the occurrence of technical issues that disrupt the securities markets and improving recovery time when disruptions occur. We implemented an inter-disciplinary program to ensure compliance with Regulation SCI. New Regulation SCI policies and procedures were created, internal policies and procedures were updated, and an information technology governance program was rolled out to ensure compliance.

Regulation of Registered Investment Advisor Subsidiary. Our subsidiary DWA is an investment advisor registered with the SEC under the Investment Advisors Act of 1940. In this capacity, DWA is subject to oversight and inspections by the SEC. Among other things, registered investment advisors like DWA must comply with certain disclosure obligations, advertising and fee restrictions and requirements relating to client suitability and custody of funds and securities. Registered investment advisors are also subject to anti-fraud provisions under both federal and state law.

CFTC Regulation. We also operate NFX, a designated contract market under the Commodity Exchange Act that is subject to regulatory oversight by the CFTC, an independent agency with the mandate to regulate commodity futures and options markets in the U.S. The National Futures Association provides regulatory services to NFX pursuant to a regulatory services agreement.

As a designated contract market, NFX is required to comply with 23 Core Principles set forth in Section 5(d) of the Commodity Exchange Act and with Part 38 of the CFTC’s regulations. NFX is also subject to the requirements of Part 40

of the CFTC’s regulations with respect to the adoption of new rules or rule amendments and the listing of new products.

NFX is subject to CFTC rule enforcement reviews conducted by the CFTC’s Division of Market Oversight. Rule enforcement reviews may examine a designated contract market’s audit trail, trade practice surveillance, disciplinary and dispute resolution programs for compliance with the relevant Core Principles.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act also has resulted in increased CFTC regulation of our use of certain regulated derivatives products, as well as the operations of some of our subsidiaries outside the U.S. and their customers.

Canadian Regulation

Regulation of Nasdaq Canada is performed by the Canadian Securities Administrators, an umbrella organization of Canada’s provincial and territorial securities regulators. As a recognized exchange in Ontario, Nasdaq Canada must comply with the terms and conditions of its exchange recognition order. Exempted from exchange recognition in each jurisdiction in Canada other than Ontario where Nasdaq Canada carries on business, Nasdaq must comply with the terms and conditions of an exemption order granted by the other jurisdictions. Oversight of the exchange is performed by the Nasdaq Canada’s lead regulator, the Ontario Securities Commission.

Nasdaq Canada is subject to several national marketplace related instruments which set out requirements for marketplace operations, trading rules and managing electronic trading risk. Exchange terms and conditions include but are not limited to, requirements for, governance, regulation, rules and rulemaking, fair access, conflict management and financial viability.

European Regulation

Regulation of our markets in the European Union and the European Economic Area focuses on matters relating to financial services, listing and trading of securities, clearing and settlement of securities and commodities as well as issues related to market abuse.

In July 2016, the European Union’s Market Abuse Regulation, which is intended to prevent market abuse, entered into force. MiFID II and MiFIR entered into force in January 2018 and primarily affect our European trading businesses. Many of the provisions of MiFID II and MiFIR are implemented through technical standards drafted by the European Securities and Markets Authority and approved by the European Commission. In addition, in 2016, the European Union adopted legislation on governance and control of the production and use of benchmark indexes. The Benchmark Regulation applies in the European Union from early 2018. However, due to transitional clauses in the Benchmark Regulation, Nasdaq as a benchmark provider, does not need to be in compliance with the Benchmark Regulation until January 1, 2020. As the regulatory environment continues to evolve and related opportunities arise, we intend to continue developing our products and services development to ensure that the exchanges and

clearinghouses that comprise Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic maintain favorable liquidity and offer fair and efficient trading.

The entities that operate trading venues in the Nordic and Baltic countries are each subject to local regulations. As a result, we have a strong local presence in each jurisdiction in which we operate regulated businesses. The regulated entities have decision-making power and can adopt policies and procedures and retain resources to manage all operations subject to their license. In Sweden, general supervision of the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange is carried out by the SFSA, while Nasdaq Clearing’s role as CCP in the clearing of derivatives is supervised by the SFSA and overseen by the Swedish central bank (Riksbanken). Additionally, as a function of the Swedish two-tier supervisory model, certain surveillance in relation to the exchange market is carried out by the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange, through its surveillance function.

Nasdaq Stockholm’s exchange activities are regulated primarily by the SSMA, which implements MiFID II into Swedish law and which sets up basic requirements regarding the board of the exchange and its share capital, and which also outlines the conditions on which exchange licenses are issued. The SSMA also provides that any changes to the exchange’s articles of association following initial registration must be approved by the SFSA. Nasdaq Clearing holds the license as a CCP under EMIR.

With respect to ongoing operations, the SSMA requires exchanges to conduct their activities in an honest, fair and professional manner, and in such a way as to maintain public confidence in the securities markets. When operating a regulated market, an exchange must apply the principles of free access (i.e., that each person which meets the requirements established by law and by the exchange may participate in trading), neutrality (i.e., that the exchange’s rules for the regulated market are applied in a consistent manner to all those who participate in trading) and transparency (i.e., that the participants must be given speedy, simultaneous and correct information concerning trading and that the general public must be given the opportunity to access this information). Additionally, the exchange operator must identify and manage the risks that may arise in its operations, use secure technical systems and identify and handle the conflicts of interest that may arise between the exchange or its owners’ interests and the interest in safeguarding effective risk management and secure technical systems. Similar requirements are set up by EMIR in relation to clearing operations.

The SSMA also contains the framework for both the SFSA’s supervisory work in relation to exchanges and clearinghouses and the surveillance to be carried out by the exchanges themselves. The latter includes the requirement that an exchange should have “an independent surveillance function with sufficient resources and powers to meet the exchange’s obligations.” That requires the exchange to, among other things, supervise trading and price information, compliance with laws, regulations and good market practice, participant compliance with trading participation rules, financial instrument compliance with relevant listing rules and the extent to which

issuers meet their obligation to submit regular financial information to relevant authorities.

The regulatory environment in the other Nordic and Baltic countries in which a Nasdaq entity has a trading venue is broadly similar to the regulatory environment in Sweden. Since 2005, there has been cooperation between the SFSA and the main supervisory authorities in Iceland, Denmark and Finland, which looks to safeguard effective and comprehensive supervision of the exchanges comprising Nasdaq Nordic and the systems operated by it, and to ensure a common supervisory approach.

We operate a licensed exchange, Nasdaq Oslo ASA, in Norway that trades and lists commodity derivatives. Although Norway is not a member of the EU, as a result of the European Economic Area, or EEA, agreement (agreement on the EEA entered into between the EU and European Free Trade Association) the regulatory environment is broadly similar to what applies in EU member states. In addition, in January 2019 new legislation entered into force in Norway mirroring the provisions of MiFID II and MIFIR. As a result, the regulatory environment in Norway is similar to Sweden. The Norwegian FSA supervises the Norwegian exchange on an autonomous basis and the Norwegian exchange has a separate market surveillance function overseen by the Norwegian FSA.

Confidence in capital markets is paramount for trading to function properly. Nasdaq Nordic carries out market surveillance through an independent unit that is separate from the business operations. The surveillance work is conceptually organized into two functions: one for the review and admission of listing applications and surveillance activities related to issuers (issuer surveillance) and one for surveillance of trading (trading surveillance). The real-time trading surveillance for the Finnish, Icelandic, Danish and Swedish markets has been centralized to Stockholm. In addition, there are special personnel who carry out surveillance activities at Nasdaq Oslo and each of the three Baltic exchanges. In Finland and Sweden, decisions to list new companies are made by independent listing committees that have independent members in addition to members from each respective exchange and in the other countries the decision is made by the respective president of the exchange.

If there is suspicion that a listed company or member has acted in breach of exchange regulations, the matter is handled by the respective surveillance department. Serious breaches are considered by the respective disciplinary committee in Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Sweden. Suspected insider trading is reported to the appropriate authorities in the respective country.

Employees

As of December 31, 2018, Nasdaq had 4,099 employees.

Nasdaq Website and Availability of SEC Filings

We file periodic reports, proxy statements and other information with the SEC. The SEC maintains a website that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other

information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC. The address of that site is http://www.sec.gov.

Our website is www.business.nasdaq.com. Information on our website is not a part of this Form 10-K. We make available free of charge on our website, or provide a link to, our Forms 10-K, Forms 10-Q and Forms 8-K and any amendments to these documents, that are filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the SEC. To access these filings, go to Nasdaq’s website and click on “Investor Relations,” then under “Financials” click on “SEC Filings.”

Item 1A. Risk Factors

The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones facing us. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently believe to be immaterial may also adversely affect our business. If any of the following risks actually occur, our business, financial condition, or operating results could be adversely affected.

Economic conditions and market factors, which are beyond our control, may adversely affect our business and financial condition.

Our business performance is impacted by a number of factors, including general economic conditions in both the U.S. and Europe, market volatility, changes in investment patterns and priorities, and other factors that are generally beyond our control. To the extent that global or national economic conditions weaken and result in slower growth or recessions, our business is likely to be negatively impacted. Adverse market conditions could reduce customer demand for our services and the ability of our customers, lenders and other counterparties to meet their obligations to us. Poor economic conditions may result in a reduction in the demand for our products and services, including our market technology, data, index and corporate solutions, a decline in trading volumes or values and deterioration of the economic welfare of our listed companies. Over 73% of our revenues less transaction-based expenses in 2018 were recurring or subscription-based and if adverse conditions cause our customers to delay or cancel existing orders or subscriptions, our revenues will decline.

Trading volumes and values are driven primarily by general market conditions and declines in trading volumes or values may affect our market share and impact our pricing. In addition,

our Market Services businesses receive revenues from a relatively small number of customers concentrated in the financial industry, so any event that impacts one or more customers or the financial industry in general could impact our revenues.

The number of listings on our markets is primarily influenced by factors such as investor demand, the global economy, available sources of financing, and tax and regulatory policies. Adverse conditions may jeopardize the ability of our listed companies to comply with the continued listing requirements of our exchanges.

Information Services revenues may be significantly affected by global economic conditions. Professional subscriptions to our data products are at risk if staff reductions occur in financial services companies, which could result in significant reductions in our professional user revenue. In addition, adverse market conditions may cause reductions in the number of non-professional investors with investments in the market and in ETP assets under management tracking Nasdaq indexes.

There may be less demand for our Corporate Solutions or Market Technology products if global economic conditions are weak. Our customers historically cut back on purchases of new services and technology when growth rates decline, thereby reducing our opportunities to sell new products and services or upgrade existing products and services.

A reduction in trading volumes or values, market share of trading, the number of our listed companies, or demand for Information Services, Market Technology or Corporate Services products and services due to economic conditions or other market factors could adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

The industries we operate in are highly competitive.

We face significant competition in our Market Technology, Information Services and Corporate Services businesses from other market participants. We face intense competition from other exchanges and markets for market share of trading activity and listings. This competition includes both product and price competition.

The liberalization and globalization of world markets has resulted in greater mobility of capital, greater international participation in local markets and more competition. As a result, both in the U.S. and in other countries, the competition among exchanges and other execution venues has become more intense. Marketplaces in both Europe and the U.S. have also merged to achieve greater economies of scale and scope.

Regulatory changes also have facilitated the entry of new participants in the European Union that compete with our European markets. The regulatory environment, both in the U.S. and in Europe, is structured to maintain this environment of intense competition. In addition, a high proportion of business in the securities markets is becoming concentrated in a smaller number of institutions and our revenue may therefore become concentrated in a smaller number of customers.

We also compete globally with other regulated exchanges and markets, ATSs, MTFs and other traditional and non-traditional execution venues. Some of these competitors also are our customers. Competitors may develop market trading platforms that are more competitive than ours. Competitors may leverage data more effectively or enter into strategic partnerships, mergers or acquisitions that could make their trading, listings, clearing, data or technology businesses more competitive than ours.

We face intense price competition in all areas of our business. In particular, the trading industry is characterized by intense price competition. We have in the past lowered prices, and in the U.S., increased rebates for trade executions to attempt to gain or maintain market share. These strategies have not always been successful and have at times hurt operating performance. Additionally, we have also been, and may once again be, required to adjust pricing to respond to actions by competitors and new entrants, which could adversely impact operating results. We also compete with respect to the pricing of data products and with respect to products for pre-trade book data and for post-trade last sale data. In addition, pricing in our Corporate Services, Index Licensing and Services and Market Technology businesses is subject to competitive pressures.

If we are unable to compete successfully in the industries in which we do business, our business, financial condition and operating results will be adversely affected.

System limitations or failures could harm our business.

Our businesses depend on the integrity and performance of the technology, computer and communications systems supporting them. If new systems fail to operate as intended or our existing systems cannot expand to cope with increased demand or otherwise fail to perform, we could experience unanticipated disruptions in service, slower response times and delays in the introduction of new products and services. These consequences could result in service outages, lower trading volumes or values, financial losses, decreased customer satisfaction and regulatory sanctions. Our markets and the markets that rely on our technology have experienced systems failures and delays in the past and could experience future systems failures and delays.

Although we currently maintain and expect to maintain multiple computer facilities that are designed to provide redundancy and back-up to reduce the risk of system disruptions and have facilities in place that are expected to maintain service during a system disruption, such systems and facilities may prove inadequate. If trading volumes increase unexpectedly or other unanticipated events occur, we may need to expand and upgrade our technology, transaction processing systems and network infrastructure. We do not know whether we will be able to accurately project the rate, timing or cost of any volume increases, or expand and upgrade our systems and infrastructure to accommodate any increases in a timely manner.

While we have programs in place to identify and minimize our exposure to vulnerabilities and work in collaboration with the technology industry to share corrective measures with our business partners, we cannot guarantee that such events will not

occur in the future. Any system issue that causes an interruption in services, decreases the responsiveness of our services or otherwise affects our services could impair our reputation, damage our brand name and negatively impact our business, financial condition and operating results.

We must continue to introduce new products, initiatives and enhancements to maintain our competitive position.

We intend to launch new products and initiatives and continue to explore and pursue opportunities to strengthen our business and grow our company. We may spend substantial time and money developing new products, initiatives and enhancements to existing products. If these products and initiatives are not successful, we may not be able to offset their costs, which could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

In our technology operations, we have invested substantial amounts in the development of system platforms, the rollout of our platforms and the adoption of new technologies, such as blockchain, machine intelligence and the cloud. Although investments are carefully planned, there can be no assurance that the demand for such platforms or technologies will justify the related investments. If we fail to generate adequate revenue from planned system platforms or the adoption of new technologies, or if we fail to do so within the envisioned timeframe, it could have an adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition. In addition, clients may delay purchases in anticipation of new products or enhancements.

A decline in trading and clearing volumes or values or market share will decrease our trading and clearing revenues.

Trading and clearing volumes and values are directly affected by economic, political and market conditions, broad trends in business and finance, unforeseen market closures or other disruptions in trading, the level and volatility of interest rates, inflation, changes in price levels of securities and the overall level of investor confidence. In recent years, trading and clearing volumes and values across our markets have fluctuated significantly depending on market conditions and other factors beyond our control. Current initiatives being considered by regulators and governments could have a material adverse effect on overall trading and clearing volumes or values. Because a significant percentage of our revenues is tied directly to the volume or value of securities traded and cleared on our markets, it is likely that a general decline in trading and clearing volumes or values would lower revenues and may adversely affect our operating results if we are unable to offset falling volumes or values through pricing changes. Declines in trading and clearing volumes or values may also impact our market share or pricing structures and adversely affect our business and financial condition.

If our total market share in securities decreases relative to our competitors, our venues may be viewed as less attractive sources of liquidity. If our exchanges are perceived to be less liquid, then our business, financial condition and operating results could be adversely affected.

Since some of our exchanges offer clearing services in addition to trading services, a decline in market share of trading could lead to a decline in clearing revenues. Declines in market share also could result in issuers viewing the value of a listing on our exchanges as less attractive, thereby adversely affecting our listing business. Finally, declines in market share of Nasdaq-listed securities could lower The Nasdaq Stock Market’s share of tape pool revenues under the consolidated data plans, thereby reducing the revenues of our Data Products business.

Our role in the global marketplace may place us at greater risk for a cyberattack.

Our systems and operations are vulnerable to damage or interruption from security breaches. Some of these threats include attacks from foreign governments, hacktivists, insiders and criminal organizations. Foreign governments may seek to obtain a foothold in U.S. critical infrastructure, hacktivists may seek to deploy denial of service attacks to bring attention to their cause, insiders may pose a risk by human error or malicious activity and criminal organizations may seek to profit from stolen data. Computer viruses and worms also continue to be a threat with ransomware increasingly being used by criminals to extort money. Given our position in the global securities industry, we may be more likely than other companies to be a direct target, or an indirect casualty, of such events.

While we continue to employ resources to monitor our systems and protect our infrastructure, these measures may prove insufficient depending upon the attack or threat posed. Any system issue, whether as a result of an intentional breach, collateral damage from a new virus or a non-malicious act, could damage our reputation and cause us to lose customers, experience lower trading volumes or values, incur significant liabilities or otherwise have a negative impact on our business, financial condition and operating results. Any system breach may go undetected for an extended period of time. We also could incur significant expense in addressing any of these problems and in addressing related data security and privacy concerns.

The success of our business depends on our ability to keep up with rapid technological and other competitive changes affecting our industry. Specifically, we must complete development of, successfully implement and maintain platforms that have the functionality, performance, capacity, reliability and speed required by our business and our regulators, as well as by our customers.

The markets in which we compete are characterized by rapidly changing technology, evolving industry and regulatory standards, frequent enhancements to existing products and services, the adoption of new services and products and changing customer demands. We may not be able to keep up with rapid technological and other competitive changes affecting our industry. For example, we must continue to enhance our platforms to remain competitive as well as to address our regulatory responsibilities, and our business will be negatively affected if our platforms or the technology solutions we sell to our customers fail to function as expected. If we are unable to develop our platforms to include other

products and markets, or if our platforms do not have the required functionality, performance, capacity, reliability and speed required by our business and our regulators, as well as by our customers, we may not be able to compete successfully. Further, our failure to anticipate or respond adequately to changes in technology and customer preferences or any significant delays in product development efforts, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

We may not be able to successfully integrate acquired businesses, which may result in an inability to realize the anticipated benefits of our acquisitions.

We must rationalize, coordinate and integrate the operations of our acquired businesses, including Quandl and Cinnober. This process involves complex technological, operational and personnel-related challenges, which are time-consuming and expensive and may disrupt our business. The difficulties, costs and delays that could be encountered may include:


•	difficulties, costs or complications in combining the companies’ operations, including technology platforms, which could lead to us not achieving the synergies we anticipate or customers not renewing their contracts with us as we migrate platforms;


•	incompatibility of systems and operating methods;


•	reliance on, or provision of, transition services;


•	inability to use capital assets efficiently to develop the business of the combined company;


•	difficulties of complying with government-imposed regulations in the U.S. and abroad, which may be conflicting;


•	resolving possible inconsistencies in standards, controls, procedures and policies, business cultures and compensation structures;


•	the diversion of management’s attention from ongoing business concerns and other strategic opportunities;


•	difficulties in operating businesses we have not operated before;


•	difficulties of integrating multiple acquired businesses simultaneously;


•	the retention of key employees and management;


•	the implementation of disclosure controls, internal controls and financial reporting systems at non-U.S. subsidiaries to enable us to comply with U.S. GAAP and U.S. securities laws and regulations, including the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002, required as a result of our status as a reporting company under the Exchange Act;


•	the coordination of geographically separate organizations;


•	the coordination and consolidation of ongoing and future research and development efforts;


•	possible tax costs or inefficiencies associated with integrating the operations of a combined company;


•	pre-tax restructuring and revenue investment costs;


•	the retention of strategic partners and attracting new strategic partners; and


•	negative impacts on employee morale and performance as a result of job changes and reassignments.

For these reasons, we may not achieve the anticipated financial and strategic benefits from our acquisitions and initiatives. Any actual cost savings and synergies may be lower than we expect and may take a longer time to achieve than we anticipate, and we may fail to realize the anticipated benefits of acquisitions.

We will need to invest in our operations to maintain and grow our business and to integrate acquisitions, and we may need additional funds, which may not be readily available.

We depend on the availability of adequate capital to maintain and develop our business. Although we believe that we can meet our current capital requirements from internally generated funds, cash on hand and borrowings under our revolving credit facility and commercial paper program, if the capital and credit markets experience volatility, access to capital or credit may not be available on terms acceptable to us or at all. Limited access to capital or credit in the future could have an impact on our ability to refinance debt, maintain our credit rating, meet our regulatory capital requirements, engage in strategic initiatives, make acquisitions or strategic investments in other companies, pay dividends, repurchase our stock or react to changing economic and business conditions. If we are unable to fund our capital or credit requirements, it could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

In addition to our debt obligations, we will need to continue to invest in our operations for the foreseeable future to integrate acquired businesses and to fund new initiatives. If we do not achieve the expected operating results, we will need to reallocate our cash resources. This may include borrowing additional funds to service debt payments, which may impair our ability to make investments in our business or to integrate acquired businesses.

Should we need to raise funds through issuing additional equity, our equity holders will suffer dilution. Should we need to raise funds through incurring additional debt, we may become subject to covenants even more restrictive than those contained in our credit facilities, the indentures governing our notes and our other debt instruments. Furthermore, if adverse economic conditions occur, we could experience decreased revenues from our operations which could affect our ability to satisfy financial and other restrictive covenants to which we are subject under our existing indebtedness.

We operate in a highly regulated industry and may be subject to censures, fines and enforcement proceedings if we fail to comply with regulatory obligations that can be ambiguous and can change unexpectedly.

We operate in a highly regulated industry and are subject to extensive regulation in the U.S., Europe and Canada. The securities trading industry is subject to significant regulatory oversight and could be subject to increased governmental and public scrutiny in the future that can change in response to global conditions and events.

Our ability to comply with complex and changing regulation is largely dependent on our establishment and maintenance of compliance, audit and reporting systems that can quickly adapt and respond, as well as our ability to attract and retain qualified compliance and other risk management personnel. While we have policies and procedures to identify, monitor and manage our risks and regulatory obligations, we cannot assure you that our policies and procedures will always be effective or that we will always be successful in monitoring or evaluating the risks to which we are or may be exposed.

Our regulated markets are subject to audits, investigations, administrative proceedings and enforcement actions relating to compliance with applicable rules and regulations. Regulators have broad powers to impose fines, penalties or censure, issue cease-and-desist orders, prohibit operations, revoke licenses or registrations and impose other sanctions on our exchanges, broker-dealers and markets for violations of applicable requirements.

For example, during 2016, the SFSA and the other Nordic financial supervisory authorities conducted investigations of cybersecurity processes at our Nordic exchanges and clearinghouse. In December 2016, we were issued a $6 million fine by the SFSA as a result of findings in connection with its investigation. The SFSA’s conclusions related to governance issues rather than systems and platform security. We have appealed this decision and the final outcome is still pending.

In the future, we could be subject to regulatory investigations or enforcement proceedings that could result in substantial sanctions, including revocation of our operating licenses. Any such investigations or proceedings, whether successful or unsuccessful, could result in substantial costs, the diversion of resources, including management time, and potential harm to our reputation, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations or financial condition. In addition, our exchanges could be required to modify or restructure their regulatory functions in response to any changes in the regulatory environment, or they may be required to rely on third parties to perform regulatory and oversight functions, each of which may require us to incur substantial expenses and may harm our reputation if our regulatory services are deemed inadequate.

Our clearinghouse operations expose us to risks, including credit or liquidity risks that may include defaults by clearing members, or insufficiencies in margins or default funds.

We are subject to risks relating to our operation of a clearinghouse, including counterparty and liquidity risks, risk of defaults by clearing members and risks associated with adequacy of the customer margin and of default funds. Our clearinghouse operations expose us to counterparties with

differing risk profiles. We may be adversely impacted by the financial distress or failure of a clearing member, which may cause us negative financial impact, reputational harm or regulatory consequences, including litigation or regulatory enforcement actions.

In September 2018, a member of the Nasdaq Clearing commodities market defaulted due to an inability to post sufficient collateral to cover increased margin requirements for the positions of the relevant member, which had experienced losses due to sharp adverse movements in the Nordic - German power market spread. Nasdaq Clearing followed default procedures and offset the future market risk on the defaulting member’s positions. The default resulted in a loss of $133 million which was allocated to Nasdaq Clearing and the members of the commodities default fund in accordance with the liability waterfall.

To the extent that our regulatory capital and risk management policies are not adequate to manage future financial and operational risks in our clearinghouse, we may experience adverse consequences to our operating results or ability to conduct our business.

We are exposed to credit risk from third parties, including customers, counterparties and clearing agents.

We are exposed to credit risk from third parties, including customers, counterparties and clearing agents. These parties may default on their obligations to us due to bankruptcy, lack of liquidity, operational failure or other reasons.

We clear or stand as riskless principal to a range of equity-related and fixed-income-related derivative products, commodities and resale and repurchase agreements. We assume the counterparty risk for all transactions that are cleared through our markets and guarantee that our cleared contracts will be honored. We enforce minimum financial and operational criteria for membership eligibility, require members and investors to provide collateral, and maintain established risk policies and procedures to ensure that the counterparty risks are properly monitored and proactively managed; however, none of these measures provides absolute assurance against experiencing financial losses from defaults by our counterparties on their obligations. No guarantee can be given that the collateral provided will at all times be sufficient. Although we maintain clearing capital resources to serve as an additional layer of protection to help ensure that we are able to meet our obligations, these resources may not be sufficient.

In addition, one of our broker-dealer subsidiaries, Execution Access, has a clearing arrangement with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Financial Services LLC, or ICBC. As of December 31, 2018, we have contributed $15 million of clearing deposits to ICBC in connection with this clearing arrangement. Some of the trading activity in Execution Access is cleared by ICBC through the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation. Execution Access assumes the counterparty risk of clients that do not clear through the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation. Counterparty risk of clients exists for Execution Access between the trade date and settlement date of the

individual transactions, which is at least one business day (or more, if specified by the U.S. Treasury issuance calendar). Counterparties that do not clear through the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation are subject to a credit due diligence process and may be required to post collateral, provide principal letters, or provide other forms of credit enhancement to Execution Access for the purpose of mitigating counterparty risk. Daily position trading limits are also enforced for such counterparties. Although we believe that the potential for us to be required to make payments under these arrangements is mitigated through the pledged collateral and our risk management policies, no guarantee can be provided that these arrangements will at all times be sufficient.

We also have credit risk related to transaction and subscription-based revenues that are billed to customers on a monthly or quarterly basis, in arrears.

Credit losses such as those described above could adversely affect our consolidated financial position and results of operations.

The regulatory framework under which we operate and new regulatory requirements or new interpretations of existing regulatory requirements could require substantial time and resources for compliance, which could make it difficult and costly for us to operate our business.

Under current U.S. federal securities laws, changes in the rules and operations of our securities markets, including our pricing structure, must be reviewed and in many cases explicitly approved by the SEC. The SEC may approve, disapprove, or recommend changes to proposals that we submit. In addition, the SEC may delay either the approval process or the initiation of the public comment process. Favorable SEC rulings and interpretations can be challenged in and reversed by federal courts of appeals, reducing or eliminating the value of such prior interpretations. NFX, our futures exchange, is also regulated by the CFTC and subject to a requirement to self-certify changes to these rules by filing with the CFTC. Any delay in approving changes, or the altering of any proposed change, could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

We must compete not only with ATSs that are not subject to the same SEC approval process but also with other exchanges that may have lower regulation and surveillance costs than us. There is a risk that trading will shift to exchanges that charge lower fees because, among other reasons, they spend significantly less on regulation.

In 2016, the SEC approved a plan for Nasdaq and other exchanges to establish a market-wide consolidated audit trail, or CAT, to improve regulators’ ability to monitor trading activity. In addition to increased regulatory obligations, implementation of a consolidated audit trail has resulted in significant additional expenditures, including to implement the new technology to meet any plan’s requirements. Creating CAT has required the development and implementation of complex and costly technology. This development effort has been funded by the SROs (including Nasdaq) in exchange for promissory

notes that Nasdaq expects to be repaid at such time that the SEC approves the assessment of fees for the funding of CAT. The SEC could determine not to approve the assessment of such fees in which case some or all of the promissory notes would not be repaid. In addition, the ongoing failure to timely launch or properly operate such technology exposes Nasdaq and other exchanges to SEC fines.

In addition, our registered broker-dealer subsidiaries are subject to regulation by the SEC, FINRA and other SROs. These subsidiaries are subject to regulatory requirements intended to ensure their general financial soundness and liquidity, which require that they comply with certain minimum capital requirements. The SEC and FINRA impose rules that require notification when a broker-dealer’s net capital falls below certain predefined criteria, dictate the ratio of debt to equity in the regulatory capital composition of a broker-dealer and constrain the ability of a broker-dealer to expand its business under certain circumstances. Additionally, the SEC’s Uniform Net Capital Rule and FINRA rules impose certain requirements that may have the effect of prohibiting a broker-dealer from distributing or withdrawing capital and requiring prior notice to the SEC and FINRA for certain withdrawals of capital. Any failure to comply with these broker-dealer regulations could have a material adverse effect on the operation of our business, financial condition and operating results.

Our non-U.S. business is subject to regulatory oversight in all the countries in which we operate regulated businesses, such as exchanges, clearinghouses or central securities depositories. In these countries, we have received authorization from the relevant authorities to conduct our regulated business activities. The authorities may revoke this authorization if we do not suitably carry out our regulated business activities. The authorities are also entitled to request that we adopt measures in order to ensure that we continue to fulfill the authorities’ requirements.

Furthermore, certain of our customers operate in a highly regulated industry. Regulatory authorities could impose regulatory changes that could impact the ability of our customers to use our exchanges. The loss of a significant number of customers or a reduction in trading activity on any of our exchanges as a result of such changes could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

Regulatory changes and changes in market structure could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Regulatory changes adopted by the SEC or other regulators of our markets, and regulatory changes that our markets may adopt in fulfillment of their regulatory obligations, could materially affect our business operations. In recent years, there has been increased regulatory and governmental focus on issues affecting the securities markets, including market structure, technological oversight and transaction fees. The SEC, FINRA and the national securities exchanges have introduced several initiatives to ensure the oversight, integrity and resilience of markets.

Industry responses to the MiFID II and MiFIR rules, EU Benchmark Regulation or other applicable rules could affect our operations in Europe. Changes to the rules themselves could also affect our operations in Europe. In addition, actions on any of the specific regulatory issues currently under review in the U.S. and Europe could have a material impact on our business.

With respect to our regulated businesses, our business model can be severely impacted by policy decisions. For example, the SEC has recently proposed an exchange transaction fee pilot program that could result in future regulatory changes and we, along with other stock exchanges, have challenged the SEC's order adopting the program in a court action. Our opponents in some market are larger and better funded and, if successful in influencing certain policies, may successfully advocate for positions that adversely impact our business. While we support regulatory efforts to review and improve the structure, resilience and integrity of the markets, these proposed regulatory changes and future reforms could impose significant costs, including litigation costs, and other obligations on the operation of our exchanges and processor systems and have other impacts on our business.

Regulatory changes or future court rulings may have an adverse impact on our revenue from proprietary data products.

Regulatory and legal developments could reduce the amount of revenue that we earn from our proprietary data products. In the U.S., we generally are required to file with the SEC to establish or modify the fees that we charge for our data products. In recent years, certain industry groups have objected to the ability of exchanges to charge for certain data products.

In October 2018, the SEC determined that we had not established that a fee for one of our data products was fair and reasonable, and also directed us to establish a procedure for reviewing other challenged fees. We have appealed both SEC actions to a federal appeals court. If the results of appeals, or further actions by the SEC, are detrimental to our U.S. exchanges’ ability to charge for data products, there could be a negative impact on our revenues. We cannot predict whether, or in what form, any regulatory changes will be implemented, or their potential impact on our business. A determination by the SEC, for example, to link data fees to marginal costs, to take a more active role in the data rate-setting process, or to reduce the current levels of data fees could have an adverse effect on our Data Products revenues.

In Canada, all new marketplace fees and changes to existing fees, including trading and data fees, must be filed with and approved by the Ontario Securities Commission. In 2016, the Canadian Securities Administrators approved amendments adopting a Data Fees Methodology that restricts the total amount of fees that can be charged by all marketplaces to a reference level that is not yet defined. When a reference is established, all marketplaces will be subject to annual reviews of their market data fees tying market data revenues to market share.

Our European exchanges currently offer data products to customers on a non-discriminatory and reasonable commercial basis. The MiFID II/MiFIR rules entail that the price for regulated data such as pre- and post-trade data shall be based on cost plus a reasonable margin. However, what constitutes “reasonable margin” is not clearly defined. There is a risk that a different interpretation of this term may influence the fees for European data products adversely. In addition, any future actions by the European Commission or European court decisions could affect our ability to offer data products in the same manner as today, thereby causing an adverse effect on our Data Products revenues.

Technology issues relating to our role as exclusive processor for Nasdaq-listed stocks could affect our business.

Nasdaq, as technology provider to the UTP Operating Committee, implemented in 2016 measures to enhance the resiliency of the existing processor system. Additionally, the UTP Operating Committee approved Nasdaq’s proposal to transfer the processor technology from its current enhanced platform to our INET platform. The migration, which was completed in late 2016, further enhanced the resiliency of the processor systems. In 2018, we further improved the systems resiliency by adding the UTP SnapShot service. However if, despite these improvement measures, future outages occur or the processor systems fail to function properly while we are operating the systems, it could have an adverse effect on our business, reputation, financial condition or operating results.

Our operational processes are subject to the risk of error, which may result in financial loss or reputational damage.

We have instituted extensive controls to reduce the risk of error inherent in our operations; however, such risk cannot completely be eliminated. Our businesses are highly dependent on our ability to process and report, on a daily basis, a large number of transactions across numerous and diverse markets. Some of our operations require complex processes, and the introduction of new products or services or changes in processes or reporting due to regulatory requirements may result in an increased risk of errors for a period after implementation.

Data, other content or information that we distribute may contain errors or be delayed, causing reputational harm. Use of our products and services as part of the investment process creates the risk that clients, or the parties whose assets are managed by our clients, may pursue claims against us in the event of such delay or error. Even with a favorable outcome, significant litigation against us might unduly burden management, personnel, financial and other resources.

In addition, the sophisticated software we sell to our customers may contain undetected errors or vulnerabilities, some of which may be discovered only after delivery. These errors may result in negative customer experiences that could damage our reputation, thereby causing loss of customers, loss of revenues and liability for damages, thereby adversely affecting our business and financial results.

Uncertainty relating to the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union could cause uncertainty and adversely impact our business.

We continue to evaluate the potential effect of the United Kingdom’s planned departure from the European Union (commonly referred to as Brexit) on our business operations and financial results. If the United Kingdom's membership in the European Union terminates without an agreement for the United Kingdom's orderly departure from the European Union there could be unfavorable consequences including a deterioration of general economic conditions, increased costs from re-imposition of tariffs on trade between the United Kingdom and European Union, volatility of foreign exchange rates and legal uncertainty. Brexit may also have adverse tax effects on movement of products or activities between the UK and EU.

Currently, we do not anticipate that Brexit will have a material impact on our operations or our financial results. While we have operations in the UK, these operations are limited in scope and not material to our overall business. However, we may be impacted if our customers in the UK are subject to additional costs or restrictions in accessing our products or services. In addition, the overall impact of Brexit may create further global economic uncertainty, which may adversely impact the activities of our customers.

Laws and regulations regarding the handling of personal data and information may affect our services or result in increased costs, legal claims or fines against us.

Our business relies on the processing of data in many jurisdictions and the movement of data across national borders. Legal and contractual requirements relating to the collection, storage, handling, use, disclosure, transfer and security of personal data continue to evolve; regulatory scrutiny in this area is increasing around the world. Significant uncertainty exists as privacy and data protection laws may be interpreted and applied differently across jurisdictions and may create inconsistent or conflicting requirements.

The European Union General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, which became effective in May 2018, extends the scope of the European Union data protection law and requires companies to meet new requirements regarding the handling of personal data. In addition to directly applying to certain Nasdaq business activities, this regulation impacts many of our customers, which may affect their requirements and decisions related to services that we offer. Although we have implemented a program to address GDPR requirements, our efforts to comply with GDPR and other privacy and data protection laws may entail substantial expenses, may divert resources from other initiatives and projects, and could impact the services that we offer. Furthermore, enforcement actions and investigations by regulatory authorities related to data security incidents and privacy violations continue to increase. The enactment of more restrictive laws, rules or regulations or future enforcement actions or investigations could impact us through increased costs or restrictions on our business, and noncompliance could result in regulatory penalties and significant legal liability.

Stagnation or decline in the listings market could have an adverse effect on our revenues.

The market for listings is dependent on the prosperity of companies and the availability of risk capital. A stagnation or decline in the number of new listings on The Nasdaq Stock Market and the Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic exchanges could cause a decrease in revenues for future years. Furthermore, a prolonged decrease in the number of listings could negatively impact the growth of our transactions revenues. Our Corporate Solutions business is also impacted by declines in the listings market or increases in acquisitions activity as there will be fewer publicly-traded customers that need our products.

Our credit rating could increase the cost of our funding from the capital markets.

Our long-term debt is currently rated investment grade by two of the major rating agencies. These rating agencies regularly evaluate us, and their ratings of our long-term debt and commercial paper are based on a number of factors, including our financial strength and corporate development activity, as well as factors not entirely within our control, including conditions affecting our industry generally. There can be no assurance that we will maintain our current ratings. Our failure to maintain those ratings could reduce or eliminate our ability to issue commercial paper and adversely affect the cost and other terms upon which we are able to obtain funding and increase our cost of capital. A reduction in credit ratings would also result in increases in the cost of our commercial paper and other outstanding debt as the interest rate on the outstanding amounts under our credit facilities and most tranches of our senior notes fluctuates based on our credit ratings.

Damage to our reputation or brand name could have a material adverse effect on our businesses.

One of our competitive strengths is our strong reputation and brand name. Various issues may give rise to reputational risk, including issues relating to:


•	our ability to maintain the security of our data and systems;


•	the quality and reliability of our technology platforms and systems;


•	the ability to fulfill our regulatory obligations;


•	the ability to execute our business plan, key initiatives or new business ventures and the ability to keep up with changing customer demand;


•	the representation of our business in the media;


•	the accuracy of our financial statements and other financial and statistical information;


•	the accuracy of our financial guidance or other information provided to our investors;


•	the quality of our corporate governance structure;


•	the quality of our products, including the reliability of our transaction-based, Corporate Solutions and Market

Technology products, the accuracy of the quote and trade information provided by our Data Products business and the accuracy of calculations used by our Index Licensing and Services business for indexes and unit investment trusts;


•	the quality of our disclosure controls or internal controls over financial reporting, including any failures in supervision;


•	extreme price volatility on our markets;


•	any negative publicity surrounding our listed companies;


•	any negative publicity surrounding the use of our products or\and services by our customers, including in connection with emerging asset classes such as crypto assets; and


•	any misconduct, fraudulent activity or theft by our employees or other persons formerly or currently associated with us.

Damage to our reputation could cause some issuers not to list their securities on our exchanges, as well as reduce the trading volumes or values on our exchanges or cause us to lose customers in our Data Products, Index Licensing and Services, Corporate Solutions or Market Technology businesses. This, in turn, may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

We may be required to recognize impairments of our goodwill, intangible assets or other long-lived assets in the future.

Our business acquisitions typically result in the recording of goodwill and intangible assets, and the recorded values of those assets may become impaired in the future. As of December 31, 2018, goodwill totaled $6.4 billion and intangible assets, net of accumulated amortization, totaled $2.3 billion. The determination of the value of such goodwill and intangible assets requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect our consolidated financial statements.

We assess goodwill and intangible assets, as well as other long-lived assets, including equity and cost method investments and property and equipment, for impairment on an annual basis or more frequently if indicators of impairment arise. We estimate the fair value of such assets by assessing many factors, including historical performance, capital requirements and projected cash flows. Considerable management judgment is necessary to project future cash flows and evaluate the impact of expected operating and macroeconomic changes on these cash flows. The estimates and assumptions we use are consistent with our internal planning process. However, there are inherent uncertainties in these estimates.

There was no impairment of goodwill for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017 and 2016, and there were no indefinite-lived intangible asset impairment charges in 2018 and 2017. As discussed in “Goodwill and Indefinite-Lived Intangible Assets,” of Note 2, “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies,” to the consolidated financial statements, we recorded an indefinite-lived intangible asset impairment charge of $578 million in 2016.

We may experience future events that may result in asset impairments. Future disruptions to our business, prolonged economic weakness or significant declines in operating results at any of our reporting units or businesses, may result in impairment charges to goodwill, intangible assets or other long-lived assets. A significant impairment charge in the future could have a material adverse effect on our operating results.

For additional discussion of our goodwill, indefinite-lived intangible assets and other long-lived assets, including related impairment, see “Goodwill and Related Impairment,” “Indefinite-Lived Intangible Assets and Related Impairment,” and “Other Long-Lived Assets and Related Impairment,” of “Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates,” of Item 7. “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” and “Goodwill and Indefinite-Lived Intangible Assets,” and “Valuation of Other Long-Lived Assets,” of Note 2, “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies,” and Note 5, “Goodwill and Acquired Intangible Assets,” to the consolidated financial statements.

We may experience fluctuations in our operating results, which may adversely affect the market price of our common stock.

Our industry is risky and unpredictable and is directly affected by many national and international factors beyond our control, including:


•	economic, political and geopolitical market conditions;


•	natural disasters, terrorism, war or other catastrophes;


•	broad trends in finance and technology;


•	changes in price levels and volatility in the stock markets;


•	the level and volatility of interest rates;


•	changes in government monetary or tax policy;


•	the perceived attractiveness of the U.S. or European capital markets; and


•	inflation.

Any one of these factors could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results by causing a substantial decline in the financial services markets and reducing trading volumes or values.

Additionally, since borrowings under our credit facilities bear interest at variable rates, any increase in interest rates on debt that we have not fixed using interest rate hedges will increase our interest expense, reduce our cash flow or increase the cost of future borrowings or refinancings. Other than variable rate debt, we believe our business has relatively large fixed costs and low variable costs, which magnifies the impact of revenue fluctuations on our operating results. As a result, a decline in our revenue may lead to a relatively larger impact on operating results. A substantial portion of our operating expenses is related to personnel costs, regulation and corporate overhead, none of which can be adjusted quickly and some of which cannot be adjusted at all. Our operating expense levels are based on our

expectations for future revenue. If actual revenue is below management’s expectations, or if our expenses increase before revenues do, both revenues less transaction-based expenses and operating results would be materially and adversely affected. Because of these factors, it is possible that our operating results or other operating metrics may fail to meet the expectations of stock market analysts and investors. If this happens, the market price of our common stock may be adversely affected.

Our leverage limits our financial flexibility, increases our exposure to weakening economic conditions and may adversely affect our ability to obtain additional financing.

Our indebtedness as of December 31, 2018 was $3.8 billion. We may borrow additional amounts by utilizing available liquidity under our existing credit facilities or issuing short-term, unsecured commercial paper notes through our commercial paper program.

Our leverage could:


•	reduce funds available to us for operations and general corporate purposes or for capital expenditures as a result of the dedication of a substantial portion of our consolidated cash flow from operations to the payment of principal and interest on our indebtedness;


•	increase our exposure to a continued downturn in general economic conditions;


•	place us at a competitive disadvantage compared with our competitors with less debt;


•	affect our ability to obtain additional financing in the future for refinancing indebtedness, acquisitions, working capital, capital expenditures or other purposes; and


•	increase our cost of debt and reduce or eliminate our ability to issue commercial paper.

In addition, we must comply with the covenants in our credit facilities. Among other things, these covenants restrict our ability to incur additional indebtedness, grant liens on assets, dispose of assets and pay dividends (although we are permitted to pay cash dividends on our common stock). Failure to meet any of the covenant terms of our credit facilities could result in an event of default. If an event of default occurs, and we are unable to receive a waiver of default, our lenders may increase our borrowing costs, restrict our ability to obtain additional borrowings and accelerate all amounts outstanding.

We are subject to litigation risks and other liabilities.

Many aspects of our business potentially involve substantial liability risks. Although under current law we are immune from private suits arising from conduct within our regulatory authority and from acts and forbearances incident to the exercise of our regulatory authority, this immunity only covers certain of our activities in the U.S., and we could be exposed to liability under national and local laws, court decisions and rules and regulations promulgated by regulatory agencies.

Some of our other liability risks arise under the laws and regulations relating to the tax, employment, intellectual

property, anti-money laundering, technology export, foreign asset controls, foreign corrupt practices areas, employee labor and employment areas, including anti-discrimination and fair-pay laws and regulations.

Liability could also result from disputes over the terms of a trade, claims that a system failure or delay cost a customer money, claims we entered into an unauthorized transaction or claims that we provided materially false or misleading statements in connection with a securities transaction. As we intend to defend any such litigation actively, significant legal expenses could be incurred. Although we carry insurance that may limit our risk of damages in some cases, we still may sustain uncovered losses or losses in excess of available insurance that would affect our financial condition and results of operations.

We have self-regulatory obligations and also operate for-profit businesses, and these two roles may create conflicts of interest.

We have obligations to regulate and monitor activities on our markets and ensure compliance with applicable law and the rules of our markets by market participants and listed companies. In the U.S., some have expressed concern about potential conflicts of interest of “for-profit” markets performing the regulatory functions of an SRO. Although our U.S. cash equity and options exchanges outsource a portion of their market regulation functions to FINRA, we do perform regulatory functions and bear regulatory responsibility related to our listed companies and our markets. Any failure by us to diligently and fairly regulate our markets or to otherwise fulfill our regulatory obligations could significantly harm our reputation, prompt SEC scrutiny and adversely affect our business and reputation.

Our Nordic and Baltic exchanges monitor trading and compliance with listing standards in accordance with the European Union’s Market Abuse Regulation and other applicable laws. The prime objective of such monitoring activities is to promote confidence in the exchanges among the general public and to ensure fair and orderly functioning markets. The monitoring functions within the Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic exchanges are the responsibility of the surveillance departments or other surveillance personnel. The surveillance departments or personnel are intended to strengthen the integrity of and confidence in these exchanges and to avoid conflicts of interest. Any failure to diligently and fairly regulate the Nordic and Baltic exchanges could significantly harm our reputation, prompt scrutiny from regulators and adversely affect our business and reputation.

Failure to protect our intellectual property rights, or allegations that we have infringed on the intellectual property rights of others, could harm our brand-building efforts and ability to compete effectively.

To protect our intellectual property rights, we rely on a combination of trademark laws, copyright laws, patent laws, trade secret protection, confidentiality agreements and other contractual arrangements with our affiliates, clients, strategic partners, employees and others. However, the efforts we have

taken to protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights might not be sufficient, or effective, at stopping unauthorized use of those rights. We may be unable to detect the unauthorized use of, or take appropriate steps to enforce, our intellectual property rights.

We have registered, or applied to register, our trademarks in the United States and in over 50 foreign jurisdictions and have pending U.S. and foreign applications for other trademarks. We also maintain copyright protection on our branded materials and pursue patent protection for software products, inventions and other processes developed by us. We also hold a number of patents, patent applications and licenses in the United States and other foreign jurisdictions. However, effective trademark, copyright, patent and trade secret protection might not be available or cost-effective in every country in which our services and products are offered. Moreover, changes in patent law, such as changes in the law regarding patentable subject matter, could also impact our ability to obtain patent protection for our innovations. In particular, recent amendments to the U.S. patent law may affect our ability to protect and defend our innovations. There is also a risk that the scope of protection under our patents may not be sufficient in some cases, or that existing patents may be deemed invalid or unenforceable. Failure to protect our intellectual property adequately could harm our brand and affect our ability to compete effectively. Further, defending our intellectual property rights could result in the expenditure of significant financial and managerial resources.

Third parties may assert intellectual property rights claims against us, which may be costly to defend, could require the payment of damages and could limit our ability to use certain technologies, trademarks or other intellectual property. Any intellectual property claims, with or without merit, could be expensive to litigate or settle and could divert management resources and attention. Successful challenges against us could require us to modify or discontinue our use of technology or business processes where such use is found to infringe or violate the rights of others, or require us to purchase licenses from third parties, any of which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

We rely on third parties to perform certain functions, and our business could be adversely affected if these third parties fail to perform as expected.

We rely on third parties for regulatory, data center, data storage, data content, clearing and other services. To the extent that any of our vendors or other third-party service providers experiences difficulties, materially changes their business relationship with us or is unable for any reason to perform their obligations, our business or our reputation may be materially adversely affected.

We also rely on members of our trading community to maintain markets and add liquidity. To the extent that any of our largest members experiences difficulties, materially changes its business relationship with us or is unable for any reason to perform market making activities, our business or our reputation may be materially adversely affected.

We are a holding company that depends on cash flow from our subsidiaries to meet our obligations, and any restrictions on our subsidiaries’ ability to pay dividends or make other payments to us may have a material adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.

As a holding company, we require dividends and other payments from our subsidiaries to meet cash requirements. Minimum capital requirements mandated by regulatory authorities having jurisdiction over some of our regulated subsidiaries indirectly restrict the amount of dividends paid upstream.

In addition, unremitted earnings of certain subsidiaries outside of the U.S. are used to finance our international operations and are considered to be indefinitely reinvested.

If our subsidiaries are unable to pay dividends and make other payments to us when needed, we may be unable to satisfy our obligations, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

Acquisitions, dispositions, investments, joint ventures and other transactional activities may require significant resources and/or result in significant unanticipated losses, costs or liabilities.

Over the past several years, acquisitions have been significant factors in our growth. We also may divest additional businesses or assets in the future. Although we cannot predict our transactional activities with complete accuracy, we believe that additional acquisitions, divestments, investments, joint ventures and other transactional activities will be important to our strategy. Such transactions may be material in size and scope. Many of the other potential purchasers of assets in our industry have greater financial resources than we have. Therefore, we cannot be sure that we will be able to complete future transactions on terms favorable to us.

We also invest in startups through our Nasdaq Venture program and also hold minority interests in other entities. Given the size of these investments, we do not have operational control of these entities and may have limited visibility into risk management practices. Thus, we may be subject to additional capital requirements in certain circumstances and financial and reputational risks if there are operational failures.

We may finance future transactions by issuing additional equity and/or debt. The issuance of additional equity in connection with any such transaction could be substantially dilutive to existing shareholders. In addition, announcement or implementation of future transactions by us or others could have a material effect on the price of our common stock. The issuance of additional debt could increase our leverage substantially. We could face financial risks associated with incurring additional debt, particularly if the debt results in significant incremental leverage. Additional debt may reduce our liquidity, curtail our access to financing markets, impact our standing with credit rating agencies and increase the cash flow required for debt service. Any incremental debt incurred to finance a transaction could also place significant constraints on the operation of our business.

Furthermore, any future transactions could entail a number of additional risks, including:


•	problems with effective integration of operations;


•	the inability to maintain key pre-transaction business relationships;


•	reliance on, or provision of, transition services;


•	increased operating costs;


•	the diversion of our management team from other operations;


•	problems with regulatory bodies;


•	risks associated with divesting employees, customers or vendors when divesting businesses or assets;


•	declines in the value of investments;


•	exposure to unanticipated liabilities;


•	difficulties in realizing projected efficiencies, synergies and cost savings; and


•	changes in our credit rating and financing costs.

Changes in tax laws, regulations or policies could have a material adverse effect on our financial results.

Like other corporations, we are subject to taxes at the federal, state and local levels, as well as in non-U.S. jurisdictions. Changes in tax laws, regulations or policies could result in us having to pay higher taxes, which would in turn reduce our net income.

In addition, some of our subsidiaries are subject to tax in the jurisdictions in which they are organized or operate. In computing our tax obligation in these jurisdictions, we take various tax positions. We cannot assure you that upon review of these positions the applicable authorities will agree with our positions. A successful challenge by a tax authority could result in additional tax imposed on our subsidiaries.

Failure to attract and retain key personnel may adversely affect our ability to conduct our business.

Our future success depends, in large part, upon our ability to attract and retain highly qualified professional personnel. Competition for key personnel in the various localities and business segments in which we operate is intense. Our ability to attract and retain key personnel, in particular senior officers or technology personnel, will be dependent on a number of factors, including prevailing market conditions and compensation packages offered by companies competing for the same talent. There is no guarantee that we will have the continued service of key employees who we rely upon to execute our business strategy and identify and pursue strategic opportunities and initiatives. In particular, we may have to incur costs to replace senior officers or other key employees who leave, and our ability to execute our business strategy could be impaired if we are unable to replace such persons in a timely manner.

Our non-U.S. business operates in various international markets, particularly emerging markets that are subject to greater political, economic and social uncertainties than developed countries.

Our non-U.S. business operates in various international markets, including but not limited to Northern Europe, the Baltics, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Therefore, our non-U.S. operations are subject to the risk inherent in the international environment. Political, economic or social events or developments in one or more of our non-U.S. locations could adversely affect our operations and financial results. Some locations, such as Lithuania, India and the Philippines, may increase risk. Some of these economies may be subject to greater political, economic and social uncertainties than countries with more developed institutional structures.

Unforeseen or catastrophic events could interrupt our critical business functions. In addition, our U.S. and European businesses are heavily concentrated in particular areas and may be adversely affected by events in those areas.

We may incur losses as a result of unforeseen or catastrophic events, such as terrorist attacks, natural disasters, extreme weather, fire, power loss, telecommunications failures, human error, theft, sabotage and vandalism. Given our position in the global capital markets, we may be more likely than other companies to be a target for malicious disruption activities.

In addition, our U.S. and European business operations are heavily concentrated in the U.S. East Coast, and Stockholm respectively. Any event that impacts either of those geographic areas could potentially affect our ability to operate our businesses.

We have disaster recovery and business continuity plans and capabilities for critical systems and business functions to mitigate the risk of an interruption. In April 2018, Nasdaq activated its disaster recovery and business continuity plans when its primary data center site in Vasby, Sweden became unavailable due to an errant fire suppression system. Any interruption in our critical business functions or systems could negatively impact our financial condition and operating results. For example, some co-location customers lack adequate disaster recovery solutions to avoid loss of trade flow from a sustained interruption of our critical systems.

Because we have operations in numerous countries, we are exposed to currency risk.

We have operations in the U.S., the Nordic and Baltic countries, the U.K., Australia and many other foreign countries. We therefore have significant exposure to exchange rate movements between the Euro, Swedish Krona and other foreign currencies towards the U.S. dollar. Significant inflation or disproportionate changes in foreign exchange rates with respect to one or more of these currencies could occur as a result of general economic conditions, acts of war or terrorism, changes in governmental monetary or tax policy, changes in local interest rates or other factors. These exchange rate differences will affect the translation of our non-U.S. results of operations and financial condition into U.S. dollars as part of the

preparation of our consolidated financial statements and could adversely affect our financial results.

If our risk management methods are not effective, our business, reputation and financial results may be adversely affected.

We utilize widely-accepted methods to identify, assess, monitor and manage our risks, including oversight of risk management by Nasdaq’s Global Risk Management Committee, which comprises senior executives and has responsibility for regularly reviewing risks and referring significant risks to the board of directors or specific board committees. By definition, some risk management methods require subjective evaluation of dynamic information regarding markets, customers or other matters. That variable information may not in all cases be accurate, complete, up-to-date or properly evaluated. If we do not successfully identify, assess, monitor or manage the risks to which we are exposed, our business, reputation, financial condition and operating results could be materially adversely affected.

Charges to earnings resulting from acquisition, integration and restructuring costs may materially adversely affect the market value of our common stock.

In accordance with U.S. GAAP, we are accounting for the completion of our acquisitions using the acquisition method of accounting. We are allocating the total estimated purchase prices to net tangible assets, amortizable intangible assets and indefinite-lived intangible assets, and based on their fair values as of the date of completion of the acquisitions, recording the excess of the purchase price over those fair values as goodwill. Our financial results, including earnings per share, could be adversely affected by a number of financial adjustments including the following:


•	we may incur additional amortization expense over the estimated useful lives of certain of the intangible assets acquired in connection with acquisitions during such estimated useful lives;


•	we may have additional depreciation expense as a result of recording acquired tangible assets at fair value, in accordance with U.S. GAAP, as compared to book value as recorded;


•	to the extent the value of goodwill or intangible assets becomes impaired, we may be required to incur material charges relating to the impairment of those assets;


•	we may incur additional costs from integrating our acquisitions. The success of our acquisitions depends, in part, on our ability to integrate these businesses into our existing operations and realize anticipated cost savings, revenue synergies and growth opportunities; and


•	we may incur restructuring costs in connection with the reorganization of any of our businesses.

Decisions to declare future dividends on our common stock will be at the discretion of our board of directors based upon a review of relevant considerations. Accordingly, there can be

no guarantee that we will pay future dividends to our stockholders.

Our board of directors regularly declares quarterly cash dividend payments on our outstanding common stock. Future declarations of quarterly dividends and the establishment of future record and payment dates are subject to approval by Nasdaq’s board of directors. The board’s determination to declare dividends will depend upon our profitability and financial condition, contractual restrictions, restrictions imposed by applicable law and other factors that the board deems relevant. Based on an evaluation of these factors, the board of directors may determine not to declare future dividends at all or to declare future dividends at a reduced amount. Accordingly, there can be no guarantee that we will pay future dividends to our stockholders.

Provisions of our certificate of incorporation, by-laws, exchange rules (including provisions included to address SEC concerns) and governing law restrict the ownership and voting of our common stock. In addition, such provisions could delay or prevent a change in control of us and entrench current management.

Our organizational documents place restrictions on the voting rights of certain stockholders. The holders of our common stock are entitled to one vote per share on all matters to be voted upon by the stockholders except that no person may exercise voting rights in respect of any shares in excess of 5% of the then outstanding shares of our common stock. Any change to the 5% voting limitation would require SEC approval.

In response to the SEC’s concern about a concentration of our ownership, the rules of some of our exchange subsidiaries include a prohibition on any member or any person associated with a member of the exchange from beneficially owning more than 20% of our outstanding voting interests. SEC consent would be required before any investor could obtain more than a 20% voting interest in us. The rules of some of our exchange subsidiaries also require the SEC’s approval of any business ventures with exchange members, subject to exceptions.

Our organizational documents contain provisions that may be deemed to have an anti-takeover effect and may delay, deter or prevent a change of control of us, such as a tender offer or takeover proposal that might result in a premium over the market price for our common stock. Additionally, certain of these provisions make it more difficult to bring about a change in the composition of our board of directors, which could result in entrenchment of current management.

Our certificate of incorporation and by-laws:


•	do not permit stockholders to act by written consent;


•	require certain advance notice for director nominations and actions to be taken at annual meetings; and


•	authorize the issuance of undesignated preferred stock, or “blank check” preferred stock, which could be issued by our board of directors without stockholder approval.

Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law imposes restrictions on mergers and other business combinations between us and any holder of 15% or more (or, in some cases, a holder who previously held 15% or more) of our common stock. In general, Delaware law prohibits a publicly held corporation from engaging in a “business combination” with an “interested stockholder” for three years after the stockholder becomes an interested stockholder, unless the corporation’s board of directors and stockholders approve the business combination in a prescribed manner.

Finally, many of the European countries where we operate regulated entities require prior governmental approval before an investor acquires 10% or greater of our common stock.

Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments

None.

Item 2. Properties

The following is a description of our principal properties which are all leased.



Location	Use	Size (approximate, in square feet)
Stockholm, Sweden	European headquarters	264,000
New York, New York	U.S. headquarters	113,000
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	General office space	74,000
Atlanta, Georgia	General office space	68,000
New York, New York	Location of MarketSite	66,000
Bengaluru, India	General office space	63,000
New York, New York	General office space	53,000
Vilnius, Lithuania	General office space	51,000
Rockville, Maryland	General office space	48,000
Manila, Philippines	General office space	36,000
London, England	General office space	31,000
Sydney, Australia	General office space	29,000
Toronto, Canada	General office space	26,000

Outside the U.S., we also maintain leased locations in Belgium, China, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Spain and Ukraine. In some countries, we maintain multiple locations.

Within the U.S., we also maintain leased locations in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Virginia and Washington, DC. In some states, we maintain multiple locations.

In addition to the above, we also lease approximately 67,000 square feet of space used as data centers and disaster preparedness facilities in multiple locations.

Generally, our properties are not earmarked for use by a particular segment. Instead, most of our properties are used by two or more segments. We believe the facilities we occupy are adequate for the purposes for which they are currently used and are well-maintained.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings

See “Legal and Regulatory Matters - Litigation,” of Note 19, “Commitments, Contingencies and Guarantees,” to the consolidated financial statements, which is incorporated herein by reference.

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures

Not applicable.

PART II

Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

Market Information

Our common stock is listed on The Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol “NDAQ.” As of February 14, 2019, we had approximately 250 holders of record of our common stock.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

Share Repurchase Program

See “Share Repurchase Program,” of Note 12, “Nasdaq Stockholders’ Equity,” to the consolidated financial statements for further discussion of our share repurchase program.

Purchases of Equity Securities by the Issuer and Affiliated Purchasers

The following table summarizes the share repurchase activity of our common stock during the fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2018:



Period	(a) Total Number of Shares Purchased	(b) Average Price Paid Per Share		(c) Total Number of Shares Purchased as Part of Publicly Announced Plans or Programs	(d) Maximum Dollar Value of Shares that May Yet Be Purchased Under the Plans or Programs (in millions)
October 2018
Share repurchase program	—	$	—	—	$	332
Employee transactions⁽¹⁾	2,060	84.57		N/A	N/A

November 2018
Share repurchase program	—	$	—	—	$	332
Employee transactions⁽¹⁾	1,370	87.33		N/A	N/A

December 2018
Share repurchase program	—	$	—	—	$	332
Employee transactions⁽¹⁾	66,133	82.11		N/A	N/A

Total Quarter Ended December 31, 2018
Share repurchase program	—	$	—	—	$	332
Employee transactions	69,563	$	82.29	N/A	N/A

____________


⁽¹⁾	Represents shares we purchased from employees in connection with the settlement of employee tax withholding obligations arising from the vesting of restricted stock and PSUs.

PERFORMANCE GRAPH

The following graph compares the total return of our common stock to the Nasdaq Composite Index, the S&P 500 and a selected peer group for the past five years. The peer group includes ASX Limited, CBOE, CME Group Inc., Deutsche Börse A.G., ICE, LSE, and TMX Group Limited. Information for the indices and the peer group is provided from December 31, 2013 through December 31, 2018. The figures represented below assume an initial investment of $100 in the common stock or index at the closing price on December 31, 2013 and the reinvestment of all dividends.

COMPARISON OF 5 YEAR CUMULATIVE TOTAL RETURN*

Among Nasdaq, Inc., the Nasdaq Composite Index, the S&P 500, and a Peer Group

* $100 invested on 12/31/2013 in stock or index, including reinvestment of dividends.



	Fiscal Year Ended December 31,
	2013	2014		2015		2016		2017		2018
Nasdaq, Inc.	$ 100	$	122	$	151	$	177	$	207	$	224
Nasdaq Composite	100	115		123		133		172		166
S&P 500	100	114		115		129		157		150
Peer Group	100	107		121		139		187		208

Item 6. Selected Financial Data.

The following tables present selected financial data and should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and notes thereto of Nasdaq included elsewhere in this Form 10-K. We completed a divestiture in April 2018 and several acquisitions during the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015 and included the financial results of such acquisitions in our consolidated financial statements from the respective acquisition dates. On January 1, 2018, we adopted Topic 606 using the full retrospective method which required restatement of 2017 and 2016 financial statements. Earlier periods were not restated.

Selected Financial Data



	Year Ended December 31,
	2018			2017			2016			2015			2014
	(in millions, except share and per share amounts)
Statements of Income Data:
Total revenues	$	4,277		$	3,948		$	3,704		$	3,403		$	3,500
Transaction-based expenses	(1,751		)	(1,537		)	(1,428		)	(1,313		)	(1,433		)
Revenues less transaction-based expenses	2,526			2,411			2,276			2,090			2,067
Total operating expenses	1,498			1,420			1,440			1,370			1,313
Operating income	1,028			991			836			720			754
Net income attributable to Nasdaq	458			729			106			428			414
Per share information:
Basic earnings per share	$	2.77		$	4.38		$	0.64		$	2.56		$	2.45
Diluted earnings per share	$	2.73		$	4.30		$	0.63		$	2.50		$	2.39
Cash dividends declared per common share	$	1.70		$	1.46		$	1.21		$	0.90		$	0.58
Weighted-average common shares outstanding for earnings per share:
Basic	165,349,471			166,364,299			165,182,290			167,285,450			168,926,733
Diluted	167,691,299			169,585,031			168,800,997			171,283,271			173,018,849



	December 31,
	2018		2017		2016		2015		2014
	(in millions)
Balance Sheets Data:
Cash and cash equivalents and financial investments	$	813	$	612	$	648	$	502	$	601
Default funds and margin deposits	4,742		3,988		3,301		2,228		2,194
Goodwill	6,363		6,586		6,027		5,395		5,538
Total assets	15,700		15,354		13,411		11,257		11,542
Long-term debt	2,956		3,727		3,603		2,364		2,297
Total Nasdaq stockholders' equity	5,449		5,880		5,428		5,609		5,794

Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

The following discussion and analysis of the financial condition and results of operations of Nasdaq should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and related notes included in this Form 10-K, as well as the discussion under “Item 1A. Risk Factors.” For further discussion of our business, including our growth strategy, see “Item 1. Business.”

Overview

Our Company

We are a leading provider of trading, clearing, marketplace technology, regulatory, securities listing, information and public and private company services. Our global offerings are diverse and include trading and clearing across multiple asset classes, trade management services, market data products, financial indexes, investment data and analytics, capital formation solutions, corporate solutions, and market technology products and services. Our technology powers markets across the globe, supporting equity derivative trading, clearing and settlement, cash equity trading, fixed income trading, trading surveillance and many other functions.

Strategic Direction

Under the strategic direction that we have been implementing over the past two years, we have focused on maximizing the resources, people and capital allocated to our largest growth opportunities, particularly in our Market Technology and Information Services businesses. Our investments include our organic initiatives, notably the Nasdaq Financial Framework and related initiatives to deliver our marketplace expertise to banks, brokers and market operators outside the financial industry, as well as to provide compliance capabilities to the buy-side, and our eVestment private markets solutions. It also includes the recent acquisitions of Cinnober and Quandl.

The other pillar of our strategic direction is our continued investment and commitment to sustain our marketplace core. These foundational businesses, comprising the Market Services and Corporate Services segments, have earned Nasdaq a strategic position at the center of the capital markets in the U.S. and Europe. We have been able to create strategic relationships across broker-dealers, investment professionals, corporate clients, and other global market centers, which then provides the potential to expand those relationships with our technology and analytics capabilities.

The focus for both our non-trading (which includes Market Technology, Information Services, Corporate Services and Trade Management Services) and trading (which includes all of Market Services except Trade Management Services) businesses continues to include identifying organic growth and developing adjacent opportunities to our existing businesses. In addition, our strategy includes identifying acquisitions that both complement our strengths and extend our capabilities, as well as offer opportunities for revenue and expense synergies and increased shareholder value.

Factors Affecting Our Business

In broad terms, our business performance is impacted by a number of drivers including macroeconomic events affecting the risk and return of financial assets, investor sentiment, government and private sector demands for capital, the regulatory environment for capital markets, changes in technology, and changes in investment patterns and priorities. Our future revenues and net income will continue to be influenced by a number of domestic and international economic trends including, among others:


•	the challenges created by the automation of market data consumption, including competition and the quickly evolving nature of the market data business;


•	regulatory changes relating to market structure, including market data, or affecting certain types of instruments, transactions, pricing structures or capital market participants;


•	the demand for information about, or access to, our markets, which is dependent on the products we trade, our importance as a liquidity center, and the quality and pricing of our market data and trade management services;


•	the demand for ETPs licensed to Nasdaq's indexes, enhanced analytics and other financial products based on our indexes as well as changes to the underlying assets associated with existing licensed financial products;


•	the outlook of our technology customers for capital market activity;


•	technological advances and members’ and customers’ demand for speed, efficiency, and reliability;


•	the acceptance of cloud-based services and advanced analytics by our customers and global regulators;


•	trading volumes and values in equity derivatives, cash equities and FICC, which are driven primarily by overall macroeconomic conditions;


•	the number of companies seeking equity financing, which is affected by factors such as investor demand, the global economy, and availability of diverse sources of financing, as well as tax and regulatory policies;


•	the demand by companies and other organizations for the products sold by our Corporate Solutions business, which is largely driven by the overall state of the economy and the attractiveness of our offerings;


•	continuing pressure in transaction fee pricing due to intense competition in the U.S. and Europe; and


•	competition related to pricing, product features and service offerings.

The following chart presents the current consensus forecast for gross domestic product growth:

Although employment and wage data in many regions seems robust, indicating that the underlying global economy is still quite strong, leading indicators in many regions are pointing to a slowdown. Global gross domestic product growth forecasts have recently started to slow. In the last quarter of 2018, consensus 2019 growth forecasts have declined 0.1 percentage points to 2.5% for the U.S. and 0.5 percentage points to 1.3% for the Eurozone. There are a number of significant structural and political issues continuing to impact the global economy. Uncertainty surrounding the impact of China's economy, trade tariffs and Brexit contributed to an increase in market volatility in the last quarter of 2018 and continue to pose a risk to global growth.

Additional impacts on our business drivers include the international enactment and implementation of legislative and regulatory initiatives (notably MiFID II in Europe), the evolution of market participants’ trading and investment strategies, and the continued rapid progression and deployment of new technology in the financial services industry.

The business environment that we expect may influence our financial performance in 2019 may be characterized as follows:


•	rapidly evolving technology for our businesses and their clients;


•	increased demand for applications using emerging technologies and sophisticated analytics by both new entrants and industry incumbents;


•	the expansion of the number of industries, and emergence of new industries, seeking to use advanced market technology;


•	intense competition among U.S. exchanges and dealer-owned systems for cash equity trading and strong competition between MTFs and exchanges in Europe for cash equity trading; and


•	globalization of exchanges, customers and competitors extending the competitive horizon beyond national markets.

Business Segments

We manage, operate and provide our products and services in four business segments: Market Services, Corporate Services, Information Services and Market Technology. See Note 1, “Organization and Nature of Operations,” and Note 20, “Business Segments,” to the consolidated financial statements for further discussion of our reportable segments and geographic data, as well as how management allocates resources, assesses performance and manages these businesses as four separate segments.

Sources of Revenues and Transaction-Based Expenses

See “Revenue Recognition and Transaction-Based Expenses,” of Note 2, “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies,” to the consolidated financial statements for further discussion of our sources of revenues and transaction-based expenses.

Nasdaq’s Operating Results

Key Drivers

The following table includes key drivers for our Market Services, Corporate Services, Information Services and Market Technology segments. In evaluating the performance of our business, our senior management closely evaluates these key drivers.



	Year Ended December 31,
	2018			2017			2016
Market Services
Equity Derivative Trading and Clearing
U.S. equity options
Total industry average daily volume (in millions)	18.2			14.7			14.4
Nasdaq PHLX matched market share	15.7		%	17.3		%	16.0		%
The Nasdaq Options Market matched market share	9.4		%	9.2		%	7.8		%
Nasdaq BX Options matched market share	0.4		%	0.7		%	0.8		%
Nasdaq ISE Options matched market share	8.8		%	9.1		%	5.8		%
Nasdaq GEMX Options matched market share	4.5		%	5.2		%	1.1		%
Nasdaq MRX Options matched market share	0.1		%	0.1		%	0.1		%
Total matched market share executed on Nasdaq’s exchanges	38.9		%	41.6		%	31.6		%
Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic options and futures
Total average daily volume of options and futures contracts⁽¹⁾	339,139			330,218			376,730
Cash Equity Trading
Total U.S.-listed securities
Total industry average daily share volume (in billions)	7.32			6.53			7.35
Matched share volume (in billions)	358.5			295.9			321.6
The Nasdaq Stock Market matched market share	15.9		%	14.2		%	14.0		%
Nasdaq BX matched market share	2.8		%	3.1		%	2.4		%
Nasdaq PSX matched market share	0.8		%	0.8		%	1.0		%
Total matched market share executed on Nasdaq’s exchanges	19.5		%	18.1		%	17.4		%
Market share reported to the FINRA/Nasdaq Trade Reporting Facility	31.3		%	34.5		%	33.1		%
Total market share⁽²⁾	50.8		%	52.6		%	50.5		%
Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic securities
Average daily number of equity trades executed on Nasdaq’s exchanges	618,579			552,104			472,428
Total average daily value of shares traded (in billions)	$	5.6		$	5.3		$	5.1
Total market share executed on Nasdaq’s exchanges	67.0		%	67.5		%	62.5		%
FICC
Fixed Income
U.S. fixed income notional trading volume (in billions)	$	15,983		$	17,800		$	21,504
Total average daily volume of Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic fixed income contracts	132,475			116,357			89,252
Commodities
Power contracts cleared (TWh)⁽³⁾	1,067			1,199			1,658
Corporate Services
Initial public offerings
The Nasdaq Stock Market	186			136			91
Exchanges that comprise Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic	53			88			62
Total new listings
The Nasdaq Stock Market⁽⁴⁾	303			268			283
Exchanges that comprise Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic⁽⁵⁾	73			108			88
Number of listed companies
The Nasdaq Stock Market⁽⁶⁾	3,058			2,949			2,897
Exchanges that comprise Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic⁽⁷⁾	1,019			984			900
Information Services
Number of licensed ETPs	365			324			298
ETP assets under management tracking Nasdaq indexes (in billions)	$	172		$	167		$	124
Market Technology
Order intake (in millions)⁽⁸⁾	$	223		$	249		$	235
Total order value (in millions)⁽⁹⁾	$	695		$	717		$	691

____________


⁽¹⁾	Includes Finnish option contracts traded on Eurex.


⁽²⁾	Includes transactions executed on The Nasdaq Stock Market’s, Nasdaq BX’s and Nasdaq PSX’s systems plus trades reported through the FINRA/Nasdaq Trade Reporting Facility.


⁽³⁾	Transactions executed on Nasdaq Commodities or OTC and reported for clearing to Nasdaq Commodities measured by Terawatt hours (TWh).


⁽⁴⁾	New listings include IPOs, including those completed on a best efforts basis, issuers that switched from other listing venues, closed-end funds and separately listed ETPs.


⁽⁵⁾	New listings include IPOs and represent companies listed on the Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic exchanges and companies on the alternative markets of Nasdaq First North.


⁽⁶⁾	Number of total listings on The Nasdaq Stock Market at period end, including 392 ETPs as of December 31, 2018, 373 as of December 31, 2017 and 328 as of December 31, 2016.


⁽⁷⁾	Represents companies listed on the Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic exchanges and companies on the alternative markets of Nasdaq First North at period end.


⁽⁸⁾	Total contract value of orders signed during the period.

⁽⁹⁾

Represents total contract value of signed orders that are yet to be recognized as revenue. Market technology deferred revenue, as discussed in Note 8, “Deferred Revenue,” to the consolidated financial statements, represents consideration received that is yet to be recognized as revenue for these signed orders. Total order value for the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016 was restated as a result of the adoption of Topic 606.

* * * * * *

Financial Summary

The following table summarizes our financial performance for the year ended December 31, 2018 when compared with the same period in 2017 and for the year ended December 31, 2017 when compared with the same period in 2016. The comparability of our results of operations between reported periods is impacted by the divestiture of the Public Relations Solutions and Digital Media Services businesses in April 2018 and the acquisition of eVestment in October 2017. See Note 3, “Acquisitions and Divestiture,” to the consolidated financial statements for further discussion of these transactions. For a detailed discussion of our results of operations, see “Segment Operating Results” below. In addition, on January 1, 2018, we adopted Topic 606 using the full retrospective method which required restatement of 2017 and 2016 financial statements.



	Year Ended December 31,									Percentage Change
	2018			2017			2016			2018 vs. 2017		2017 vs. 2016
	(in millions, except per share amounts)
Revenues less transaction-based expenses	$	2,526		$	2,411		$	2,276		4.8	%	5.9	%
Operating expenses	1,498			1,420			1,440			5.5	%	(1.4	)%
Operating income	1,028			991			836			3.7	%	18.5	%
Interest expense	(150		)	(143		)	(135		)	4.9	%	5.9	%
Gain on sale of investment security	118			—			—			N/M		—	%
Net gain on divestiture of businesses	33			—			—			N/M		—	%
Asset impairment charge	—			—			(578		)	—	%	(100.0	)%
Income before income taxes	1,064			872			133			22.0	%	555.6	%
Income tax provision	606			143			27			323.8	%	429.6	%
Net income attributable to Nasdaq	$	458		$	729		$	106		(37.2	)%	587.7	%
Diluted earnings per share	$	2.73		$	4.30		$	0.63		(36.5	)%	582.5	%
Cash dividends declared per common share	$	1.70		$	1.46		$	1.21		16.4	%	20.7	%

_______

N/M - Not meaningful.

In countries with currencies other than the U.S. dollar, revenues and expenses are translated using monthly average exchange rates. Impacts on our revenues less transaction-based expenses and operating income associated with fluctuations in foreign currency are discussed in more detail under “Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk.”

Segment Operating Results

The following table shows our revenues by segment, transaction-based expenses for our Market Services segment and total revenues less transaction-based expenses:



	Year Ended December 31,									Percentage Change
	2018			2017			2016			2018 vs. 2017		2017 vs. 2016
	(in millions)
Market Services	$	2,709		$	2,418		$	2,255		12.0	%	7.2	%
Transaction-based expenses	(1,751		)	(1,537		)	(1,428		)	13.9	%	7.6	%
Market Services revenues less transaction-based expenses	958			881			827			8.7	%	6.5	%
Corporate Services	528			501			477			5.4	%	5.0	%
Information Services	714			588			540			21.4	%	8.9	%
Market Technology	270			247			241			9.3	%	2.5	%
Other revenues⁽¹⁾	56			194			$	191		(71.1	)%	1.6	%
Total revenues less transaction-based expenses	$	2,526		$	2,411		$	2,276		4.8	%	5.9	%

____________


⁽¹⁾	Includes the revenues from the Public Relations Solutions and Digital Media Services businesses which were sold in April 2018. Prior to the sale date, these revenues were included in our Corporate Solutions business. See “2018 Divestiture,” of Note 3, “Acquisitions and Divestiture,” to the consolidated financial statements for further discussion.

The following charts show our Market Services, Corporate Services, Information Services and Market Technology segments as a percentage of our total revenues less transaction-based expenses of $2,526 million in 2018, $2,411 million in 2017 and $2,276 million in 2016:

MARKET SERVICES

The following table shows total revenues, transaction-based expenses, and total revenues less transaction-based expenses from our Market Services segment:



	Year Ended December 31,									Percentage Change
	2018			2017			2016			2018 vs. 2017		2017 vs. 2016
	(in millions)
Market Services Revenues:
Equity Derivative Trading and Clearing Revenues⁽¹⁾	$	849		$	752		$	541		12.9	%	39.0	%
Transaction-based expenses:
Transaction rebates	(506		)	(450		)	(288		)	12.4	%	56.3	%
Brokerage, clearance and exchange fees⁽¹⁾	(44		)	(43		)	(25		)	2.3	%	72.0	%
Equity derivative trading and clearing revenues less transaction-based expenses	299			259			228			15.4	%	13.6	%

Cash Equity Trading Revenues⁽²⁾	1,476			1,279			1,349			15.4	%	(5.2	)%
Transaction-based expenses:
Transaction rebates	(830		)	(692		)	(785		)	19.9	%	(11.8	)%
Brokerage, clearance and exchange fees⁽²⁾	(361		)	(334		)	(309		)	8.1	%	8.1	%
Cash equity trading revenues less transaction-based expenses	285			253			255			12.6	%	(0.8	)%

FICC Revenues	92			96			99			(4.2	)%	(3.0	)%
Transaction-based expenses:
Transaction rebates	(8		)	(16		)	(19		)	(50.0	)%	(15.8	)%
Brokerage, clearance and exchange fees	(2		)	(2		)	(2		)	—	%	—	%
FICC revenues less transaction-based expenses	82			78			78			5.1	%	—	%

Trade Management Services Revenues	292			291			266			0.3	%	9.4	%
Total Market Services revenues less transaction-based expenses	$	958		$	881		$	827		8.7	%	6.5	%

____________


⁽¹⁾	Includes Section 31 fees of $39 million in 2018, $40 million in 2017, and $24 million in 2016. Section 31 fees are recorded as equity derivative trading and clearing revenues with a corresponding amount recorded in transaction-based expenses.


⁽²⁾	Includes Section 31 fees of $343 million in 2018, $319 million in 2017, and $290 million in 2016. Section 31 fees are recorded as cash equity trading revenues with a corresponding amount recorded in transaction-based expenses.

Equity Derivative Trading and Clearing Revenues

Equity derivative trading and clearing revenues and equity derivative trading and clearing revenues less transaction-based expenses increased in both 2018 compared with 2017 and 2017 compared with 2016.

The increases in 2018 were primarily due to higher U.S. industry trading volumes, partially offset by a decrease in our overall U.S. matched market share executed on Nasdaq's exchanges.

The increases in 2017 were primarily due to the inclusion of a full year of revenues from our acquisition of ISE compared with six months in 2016, higher U.S. industry trading volumes and an increase in our overall matched market share executed on Nasdaq's U.S. exchanges. Further impacting the increase in equity derivative trading revenues was higher Section 31 pass-through fee revenue.

Section 31 fees are recorded as equity derivative trading and clearing revenues with a corresponding amount recorded as transaction-based expenses. In the U.S., we are assessed these fees from the SEC and pass them through to our customers in the form of incremental fees. Pass-through fees can increase or decrease due to rate changes by the SEC, our percentage of the overall industry volumes processed on our systems, and differences in actual dollar value of shares traded. Since the amount recorded in revenues is equal to the amount recorded as transaction-based expenses, there is no impact on our revenues less transaction-based expenses. Section 31 fees decreased slightly in 2018 compared with 2017 and increased in 2017 compared with 2016. The increase in 2017 was primarily due to the inclusion of a full year of Section 31 fees from our acquisition of ISE compared with six months in 2016.

Transaction rebates, in which we credit a portion of the per share execution charge to the market participant, increased in both

2018 compared with 2017 and 2017 compared with 2016. The increase in 2018 was primarily due to higher U.S. industry trading volumes, partially offset by decrease in our overall U.S. matched market share executed on Nasdaq's exchanges. The increase in 2017 was primarily due to the inclusion of a full year of rebates associated with our acquisition of ISE compared with six months in 2016, increases in the U.S. rebate capture rate, higher U.S. industry trading volumes, and an increase in our overall U.S. matched market share.

Brokerage, clearance and exchange fees increased slightly in 2018 compared with 2017. The increase was primarily due to higher routing fees partially offset by lower Section 31 pass-through fees. The increase in 2017 compared with 2016 was primarily due to higher Section 31 pass-through fees, associated with our acquisition of ISE, as discussed above.

Cash Equity Trading Revenues

Cash equity trading revenues and cash equity trading revenues less transaction-based expenses increased in 2018 compared 2017 and decreased in 2017 compared with 2016.

The increases in 2018 were primarily due to higher U.S. and European industry trading volumes and an increase in our overall matched market share executed on Nasdaq's U.S. exchanges. Further impacting the increase in cash equity trading revenues in 2018 was an increase in Section 31 pass-through fee revenue.

Cash equity trading revenues and cash equity trading revenues less transaction-based expenses decreased in 2017 compared with 2016.

The decreases in 2017 were primarily due to:


•	lower U.S. industry trading volumes, partially offset by;


•	higher European industry trading volumes; and


•	an increase in our overall U.S. matched market share and European market share executed on Nasdaq's exchanges.

The decrease in cash equity trading revenues in 2017 was also partially offset by an increase in Section 31 pass-through fee revenue.

Similar to equity derivative trading and clearing, in the U.S. we record Section 31 fees as cash equity trading revenues with a corresponding amount recorded as transaction-based expenses. We are assessed these fees from the SEC and pass them through to our customers in the form of incremental fees. Since the amount recorded as revenues is equal to the amount recorded as transaction-based expenses, there is no impact on our revenues less transaction-based expenses. Section 31 fees increased in both 2018 compared with 2017 and 2017 compared with 2016. The increase in 2018 was primarily due to higher dollar value traded on Nasdaq’s exchanges, partially offset by lower average SEC fee rates. The increase in 2017 was primarily due to higher dollar value traded on Nasdaq’s exchanges and higher average SEC fee rates.

Transaction rebates increased in 2018 compared with 2017 and decreased in 2017 compared with 2016. For The Nasdaq Stock

Market, Nasdaq PSX and Nasdaq Canada, we credit a portion of the per share execution charge to the market participant that provides the liquidity, and for Nasdaq BX, we credit a portion of the per share execution charge to the market participant that takes the liquidity. The increase in 2018 was primarily due to an increase in our overall U.S. matched market share executed on Nasdaq’s exchanges and higher U.S. industry trading volumes, partially offset by a decrease in the U.S. rebate capture rate. The decrease in 2017 was primarily due to lower U.S. industry trading volumes, partially offset by an increase in our matched market share executed on Nasdaq’s exchanges.

Brokerage, clearance and exchange fees increased in both 2018 compared with 2017 and 2017 compared with 2016. The increases were primarily due to higher Section 31 pass-through fees, as discussed above.

FICC Revenues

FICC revenues decreased in 2018 compared with the same period in 2017 primarily due to a decline in revenues related to U.S. fixed income products. FICC revenues less transaction-based expenses increased in 2018 compared with 2017 primarily due to higher net revenues at NFX, partially offset by a decline in revenues related to U.S. fixed income products.

FICC revenues decreased in 2017 compared with the same period in 2016 primarily due to volume declines in European commodities products and U.S. fixed income products, partially offset by higher volumes and pricing changes at NFX. FICC revenues less transaction-based expenses were flat in 2017 compared with 2016 as declines in European commodities products and U.S. fixed income products were offset by higher volumes and pricing changes at NFX.

Trade Management Services Revenues

Trade management services revenues increased slightly in 2018 compared with 2017 primarily due to an increase in co-location revenues, partially offset by a decline in port connectivity revenues. The increase in 2017 compared with 2016 was primarily due to an increase in customer demand for third party connectivity, co-location, and test facilities and the inclusion of a full year of revenues from our acquisition of ISE compared with six months in 2016.

CORPORATE SERVICES

The following table shows revenues from our Corporate Services segment:



	Year Ended December 31,						Percentage Change
	2018		2017		2016		2018 vs. 2017		2017 vs. 2016
	(in millions)
Corporate Services:
Corporate Solutions	$	238	$	234	$	208	1.7	%	12.5	%
Listing Services	290		267		269		8.6	%	(0.7	)%
Total Corporate Services	$	528	$	501	$	477	5.4	%	5.0	%

Corporate Solutions Revenues

Corporate solutions revenues increased in both 2018 compared with 2017 and 2017 compared with 2016. The increase in 2018 was primarily due to an increase in board & leadership revenues and a favorable impact from foreign exchange of $2 million, partially offset by a decrease in our governance, risk & compliance revenues. The increase in 2017 was primarily due to the inclusion of revenues associated with the acquisition of Boardvantage. See “Acquisition of Boardvantage,” of Note 3, “Acquisitions and Divestiture,” to the consolidated financial statements for further discussion of the Boardvantage acquisition.

Listing Services Revenues

Listing services revenues increased in 2018 compared with 2017 and decreased in 2017 compared with 2016. The increase in 2018 was primarily from client adoption of our all-inclusive annual listing fee program and an increase in the number and size of IPOs, partially offset by the run-off of fees earned from U.S. listing of additional shares. The decrease in 2017 was primarily due to a decrease in U.S. listing of additional share fees as a result of our all-inclusive annual listing fee program, partially offset by an increase in European listing services revenues due to new company listings.

* * * * * *

INFORMATION SERVICES

The following table shows revenues from our Information Services segment:



	Year Ended December 31,						Percentage Change
	2018		2017		2016		2018 vs. 2017		2017 vs. 2016
	(in millions)
Information Services:
Market Data	$	390	$	369	$	354	5.7	%	4.2	%
Index	206		171		149		20.5	%	14.8	%
Investment Data & Analytics	118		48		37		145.8	%	29.7	%
Total Information Services	$	714	$	588	$	540	21.4	%	8.9	%

Market Data Revenues

Market data revenues increased in both 2018 compared with 2017 and 2017 compared with 2016. The increase in 2018 was primarily due to higher revenues from sales of data subscriptions (notably growth in the Asia Pacific region), an increase in market share in U.S. tape plans and higher revenues from under reported usage. Further impacting the increase in market data revenues was a favorable impact from foreign exchange of $4 million. The increase in 2017 was primarily due to growth in U.S. equities and European data products subscriptions.

Index Revenues

Index revenues increased in both 2018 compared with 2017 and 2017 compared with 2016. The increases in both 2018 and 2017 were primarily due to higher assets under management in ETPs linked to Nasdaq indexes and higher licensing revenues from futures trading volume related to the Nasdaq 100 Index.

Investment Data & Analytics Revenues

Investment data & analytics revenues increased in both 2018 compared with 2017 and 2017 compared with 2016. The increases in both 2018 and 2017 were primarily due to the inclusion of revenues associated with the acquisition of eVestment.

MARKET TECHNOLOGY

The following table shows revenues from our Market Technology segment:



	Year Ended December 31,						Percentage Change
	2018		2017		2016		2018 vs. 2017		2017 vs. 2016
	(in millions)
Market Technology	$	270	$	247	$	241	9.3	%	2.5	%

Market Technology Revenues

Market technology revenues increased in both 2018 compared with 2017 and 2017 compared with 2016. The increase in 2018 was primarily due to an increase in delivery and support revenues and higher software as a service revenues, partially offset by a decrease in change request and advisory revenues and an unfavorable impact from foreign exchange of $2 million. The increase in 2017 was primarily due to higher change request revenues and an increase in revenues from software as a service.

OTHER REVENUES

Other revenues include the revenues from the Public Relations Solutions and Digital Media Services businesses which were sold in April 2018. Prior to the sale date, these revenues were included in our Corporate Solutions business. See “2018 Divestiture,” of Note 3, “Acquisitions and Divestiture,” to the consolidated financial statements for further discussion.

Expenses

Operating Expenses

The following table shows our operating expenses:



	Year Ended December 31,						Percentage Change
	2018		2017		2016		2018 vs. 2017		2017 vs. 2016
	(in millions)
Compensation and benefits	$	712	$	670	$	665	6.3	%	0.8	%
Professional and contract services	144		153		153		(5.9	)%	—	%
Computer operations and data communications	127		125		111		1.6	%	12.6	%
Occupancy	95		94		86		1.1	%	9.3	%
General, administrative and other	120		82		73		46.3	%	12.3	%
Marketing and advertising	37		31		30		19.4	%	3.3	%
Depreciation and amortization	210		188		170		11.7	%	10.6	%
Regulatory	32		33		35		(3.0	)%	(5.7	)%
Merger and strategic initiatives	21		44		76		(52.3	)%	(42.1	)%
Restructuring charges	—		—		41		—	%	(100.0	)%
Total operating expenses	$	1,498	$	1,420	$	1,440	5.5	%	(1.4	)%

The increase in compensation and benefits expense in 2018 was primarily due to overall higher compensation costs resulting from our acquisition of eVestment and higher compensation expense reflecting higher performance incentives, partially offset by lower compensation costs due to the sale of the Public Relations Solutions and Digital Media Services businesses. The increase in compensation and benefits expense in 2017 was primarily due to overall higher compensation costs resulting from our 2017 and 2016 acquisitions and an unfavorable impact from foreign exchange of $2 million, partially offset by lower compensation expense reflecting lower performance incentives. Also impacting the increase in compensation expense in 2017 was accelerated expense recorded in 2016 for

equity awards previously granted due to the retirement of the company's former CEO.

Headcount decreased to 4,099 employees as of December 31, 2018 from 4,734 as of December 31, 2017 primarily due to the sale of the Public Relations Solutions and Digital Media Services businesses, partially offset by our 2018 acquisitions.

Professional and contract services expense decreased in 2018 primarily due to the sale of the Public Relations Solutions and Digital Media Services businesses, partially offset by additional expense associated with our 2017 acquisitions and litigation costs.

Computer operations and data communications expense increased in 2018 primarily due to higher market data feed costs

due to higher volumes as well as higher software maintenance costs, and additional costs associated with our 2017 acquisitions, partially offset by lower costs resulting from the sale of the Public Relations Solutions and Digital Media Services businesses. The increase in 2017 was due to higher hardware and license costs associated with our 2017 and 2016 acquisitions.

Occupancy expense increased in 2018 primarily due to additional facility and rent costs resulting from expansion of our new world headquarters, partially offset by lower costs from the sale of the Public Relations Solutions and Digital Media Services businesses. The increase in 2017 was associated with our 2017 and 2016 acquisitions.

The increase in general, administrative and other expense in 2018 was primarily due to charges associated with the clearing default and lower regulatory fine collections. See “Nasdaq Commodities Clearing Default,” of Note 15, “Clearing Operations,” for further discussion of the capital relief program and default. The increase in 2017 was primarily due to a pre-tax charge of $10 million in the second quarter of 2017 which primarily included a make-whole redemption price premium paid on the early extinguishment of previously outstanding debt and lower regulatory fine collections.

Marketing and advertising expense increased in both 2018 compared with 2017 and 2017 compared with 2016 primarily

due to an increase in advertising spend relating to our Listing Services and Information Services businesses.

Depreciation and amortization expense increased in both 2018 compared with 2017 and 2017 compared with 2016 primarily due to additional amortization expense associated with acquired intangible assets. The increase in 2018 was associated with our 2017 acquisition and in the increase in 2017 was associated with our 2017 and 2016 acquisitions. The increase in 2018 was also associated with software assets placed in service.

Merger and strategic initiatives expense decreased in both 2018 compared with 2017 and 2017 compared with 2016. We have pursued various strategic initiatives and completed a divestiture and a number of acquisitions in recent years which have resulted in expenses which would not have otherwise been incurred. These expenses generally include integration costs, as well as legal, due diligence and other third party transaction costs and will vary based on the size and frequency of the activities described above.

See Note 18, “Restructuring Charges,” to the consolidated financial statements for a discussion of our restructuring charges recorded during 2016.

* * * * * *

Non-operating Income and Expenses

The following table shows our non-operating income and expenses:



	Year Ended December 31,									Percentage Change
	2018			2017			2016			2018 vs. 2017		2017 vs. 2016
	(in millions)
Interest income	$	10		$	7		$	5		42.9	%	40.0	%
Interest expense	(150		)	(143		)	(135		)	4.9	%	5.9	%
Net interest expense	(140		)	(136		)	(130		)	2.9	%	4.6	%
Gain on sale of investment security	118			—			—			N/M		—	%
Net gain on divestiture of businesses	33			—			—			N/M		—	%
Asset impairment charge	—			—			(578		)	—	%	(100.0	)%
Other investment income	7			2			3			250.0	%	(33.3	)%
Net income from unconsolidated investees	18			15			2			20.0	%	650.0	%
Total non-operating income (expenses)	$	36		$	(119	)	$	(703	)	(130.3	)%	(83.1	)%

_______

N/M - Not meaningful.

Interest Income

Interest income increased in both 2018 compared with 2017 and 2017 compared with 2016 primarily due to an increase in prevailing market rates.

Interest Expense

The following table shows our interest expense:



	Year Ended December 31,						Percentage Change
	2018		2017		2016		2018 vs. 2017		2017 vs. 2016
	(in millions)
Interest expense on debt	$	140	$	135	$	129	3.7	%	4.7	%
Accretion of debt issuance costs and debt discount	7		6		5		16.7	%	20.0	%
Other bank and investment-related fees	3		2		1		50.0	%	100.0	%
Interest expense	$	150	$	143	$	135	4.9	%	5.9	%

Interest expense increased in both 2018 and 2017 primarily due to higher interest rates on floating rate debt and debt issuances related to our acquisitions. See Note 9, “Debt Obligations,” to the consolidated financial statements for further discussion of our debt obligations.

Gain on Sale of Investment Security

In December 2018, we recorded a pre-tax gain of $118 million ($93 million after tax) on the s