Nasdaq Approved to List Nasdaq-100 Event Options

Adena Friedman, chair and chief executive of Nasdaq, said the group has received approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to list event contracts that reference the Nasdaq-100 index.

On the second quarter results call on 23 July 2026 Friedman said the new contracts are expected to launch in the fourth quarter of this year. She described the second quarter as "outstanding" as there was double-digit growth across all three divisions.

In the index business, assets under management of exchange-traded products reached a record level of $1.014 trillion in the second quarter. There were record net inflows of $109bn over the last twelve months, including $51bn in the second quarter.

The index business launched 34 new products in the second quarter, including 17 international products and 11 products in the institutional annuity space. Friedman said: "Product innovation remains a key driver of growth in our index business, with 38% of the trailing 12-month net inflows driven by products launched over the last five years, and 22% driven by products launched over the last three years."

The firm expanded investor access to the Nasdaq-100 with the recent launch of BlackRock's IQQ and State Street's QNDX ETFs in the U.S. Friedman added that Nasdaq is also continuing to grow its longstanding relationship with Invesco, and cross-listed the QQQ ETF on the Nasdaq-100 in Japan in the first second quarter.

Always-on markets and tokenization

Friedman said: "Looking ahead to near-term milestones, we remain on track for a projected launch of 23/5 trading on 6 December 2026."

In June this year Nasdaq piloted tokenized collateral trades on the Canton Network, alongside two large asset managers, as tokenized money market funds were transmitted as collateral through Calypso, Nasdaq's platform for managing the entire trade lifecycle.

"It was a proof of concept on how we turn Calypso into a collateral network in tokenized form, and the way that we would commercial that over time," she added. "We are very excited because it was fun and because the guys that were there that day came out of the room saying victory."

Friedman said Nasdaq is working constructively with regulators who are seeking to encourage innovation, including always-on markets and tokenization of assets.

"These emerging innovations have the potential to become durable market advancements that meaningfully expand investor access across the globe when paired with appropriate investor protections, as well as with structures that drive institutional investor demand alongside that of retail investors," she added.

Sarah Youngwood, chief financial officer, said on the results call that perpetual derivatives are the latest example of a potential innovation being considered by U.S. regulators. Youngblood said U.S. regulatory approval has been limited to instruments outside the scope of the Nasdaq U.S. market. She argued that even if the SEC and CFTC extended approval of perpetuals to equity products, there would be minimal crossover for Nasdaq representing less than 1% of total revenue.

"Over time such innovations, to the extent they are durable, can create opportunities as they expand market access and increase demand for trusted and resilient market infrastructure," Youngblood added.

Friedman highlighted that perpetuals are used in the crypto ecosystem to allow investors to trade on margin and trade with leverage, and they provide a more elegant way to short crypto assets. She argued that these two things are very accessible in the equities world today.

"The benefit in the equities world with options is that you have convexity of return and carrying costs are much lower," added Friedman.

In addition, Friedman continued that Nasdaq can also provide surveillance technology and core trading technology to firms that want to launch or trade perpetuals.

"We also want to make sure that things like risk management and other technologies that Calypso offers, such as potentially regulatory reporting could also be covered," said Friedman. "We see it as an opportunity for us to expand our fintech division."

Market Services

The market services business reported records across quarterly net revenues and U.S. equity options volumes, supported by record industry volumes.

Nasdaq's Closing Cross set new records in notional value traded during both the June Triple Witch expiration and the Russell reconstitution. During the Russell reconstitution Nasdaq executed 4.6 billion shares in 1.6 seconds representing $334bn in notional value, more than triple the prior Russell rebalance record set last year.

During the June Triple Witch Nasdaq executed $296bn in notional value, which also marked a record for U.S. equity industry volume, with 34.6 billion shares traded on the day.

On June 11 2026 the SEC proposed rescinding Rule 611 of Regulation NMS, also known as the order protection rule, which ensures that investors receive the best possible price regardless of which exchange executes their trade. The rule prevents trading venues from executing an order at a price that was worse than the best publicly displayed price on any other competing exchange.

Friedman said she was initially at Nasdaq before the order protection rule was put in place 20 years ago and at that time Nasdaq was not in favor of introducing that rule into the market. She added that the rule has brought some benefits, including connecting markets, which has created resiliency but the disadvantage is fragmentation and preventing innovation because orders have be price time ordered.

"It doesn't allow us to have a more flexible structure such as price size," she added. "We should be able to experiment with different market models to see how they serve client needs."

As a result of the rule Nasdaq cannot compete in the off-exchange space and cannot segment order flow. Friedman said any rule change needs to ensure that the benefits of resilience and transparency are not lost, and that investors are protected.

Nasdaq is also working with crypto exchange Kraken to use the Nasdaq token design for instantaneous settlement while preserving investor rights, and expects to launch early next year.

"It really opens the aperture and accessibility of equities to more investors, so we see it as a net positive to us and to the industry in general," Friedman said.

Listings

The listings franchise delivered the strongest first half in U.S. exchange history, with $111bn in operating company proceeds raised according to Friedman.

Listings included the $86bn initial public offering of SpaceX, Elon Musk's space and AI company, which was the largest in exchange history. Friedman said: "We were also proud to dual list SpaceX on Nasdaq Texas, the region's premier listing venue."

Other largest operating company IPOs listed in the quarter, included Cerebras, the largest ever semiconductor IPO; Quantinuum, the largest ever pure-play quantum IPO, and Parabilis Medicines, the largest biotechnology IPO of all time.

In the third quarter SK Hynix completed the largest American Depositary Receipt (ADR) listing in U.S. capital markets history when the South Korean computer chip manufacturer raised $27bn.

"The IPO environment is robust, and we are in a strong position to capitalize as new companies look to join the public markets in the second half of the year," said Friedman.

She continued there is a broadening of the IPO pipeline across anything related to building out AI infrastructure, including power, as well as in healthcare and in biotech listings, and defense.

M&A

In the third quarter the firm agreed to sell Nasdaq Fund Secondaries to Nasdaq Private Market. After the deal closes Nasdaq will continue to hold an ownership stake in and remain a strategic partner of Nasdaq Private Market.

Youngwood said: "This transaction brings together two highly complementary businesses and strongly positions Nasdaq Private Markets to capitalize on the significant opportunity to provide secondary liquidity infrastructure for both private company shares and private financials."

On 23 July 2026 Nasdaq said it had agreed to acquire Dasseti, which provides an AI-powered due diligence platform for institutional asset managers and allocators across public and private markets. Nasdaq has had a relationship with Dasseti since 2022, through an early-stage investment made by Nasdaq Ventures.

Friedman said Dasseti will be integrated into eVestment, extending the platform across the full manager research, due diligence, and monitoring lifecycle. eVestment connects roughly 4,800 asset managers actively contributing data with more than 1,000 asset owners and intermediaries researching them, powering more than $90 trillion in assets under management.

Oliver Albers, chief product officer in capital access platforms at Nasdaq, said in a statement that as institutional investment teams navigate expanding private markets exposure, growing data demands, and more complex reporting requirements, they need integrated platforms. Albers said: "Adding Dasseti's powerful capabilities to Nasdaq eVestment connects AI-powered due diligence and monitoring directly to the data, research, and manager intelligence that so much of the industry already rely on."

Financials

Second quarter 2026 net revenue was $1.5bn, an increase of 15% over the same period in 2025.

Youngwood said Nasdaq's results marked excellent solutions revenue growth, expanding operating margins, strong earnings per share growth, and robust cash flow generation.

Solutions revenue was $1.2bn in the second quarter, up 17% versus the prior year period, which Nasdaq said reflected strong growth across capital access platforms and financial technology.

Capital markets technology reported quarterly organic revenue growth of 14%, reflecting the growing scale and reach of its global platform, according to Nasdaq.

Calypso signed a deal with the Georgian Financial Markets Treasury Association (GFTMA) to modernize the country's treasury and financial markets infrastructure. Five of the country's largest banks will adopt Calypso under a shared common infrastructure model.