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services industry. The business environment that influenced our
financial performance for 2016 may be characterized as
follows:
•
Intense competition among U.S. exchanges and dealer-
owned systems for cash equity trading volume and strong
competition between MTFs and exchanges in Europe for
cash equity trading volume;
•
Globalization of exchanges, customers and competitors
extending the competitive horizon beyond national
markets;
•
Headwinds in fund flows and market performance
negatively impacted new business and assets under
management of existing business in our Index Licensing
and Services business during the first half of 2016.
However, performance began to improve during the latter
part of 2016, with assets under management ending the
year higher versus 2015. In addition, we had solid growth
in our Data Products business; and
•
Market trends requiring continued investment in
technology to meet customers’ and regulators’ demands as
markets and participants adapt to a global financial
industry, as increasing numbers of new companies are
created, and as emerging countries show ongoing interest
in developing their financial markets.
2017 Outlook
Our strategy continues to include identifying organic growth
within our core business units and developing adjacent
opportunities within our core businesses. In addition, our
strategy includes identifying acquisitions that both,
complement our strengths and extend our capabilities, and offer
opportunities for revenue and expense synergies and increased
shareholder value.
During 2017, we expect changes in both the competitive and
regulatory environments. In the U.S., in 2016, The Investors
Exchange LLC became a registered exchange, CBOE and
BATS announced their intent to merge as did Deutsche Börse
A.G. and LSE. In February 2017, Miami International
Securities Exchange
launched a second options exchange. We
expect intense competition among U.S. equity and options
marketplaces to continue and new entrants will be part of our
competitive environment. While the willingness of new
entrants to commence operations can be taken as a positive sign
of good health in the trading industry, as these organizations
implement their strategies, they have the potential to affect the
competitive environment we face.
European regulators are currently moving forward on a number
of new policies affecting the operation and infrastructure of the
financial markets. The implementation of EMIR is changing
the way we structure and operate the Nordic clearinghouse.
MiFID II, as well as the new regulations in MiFIR, will change
the way our trading business operates and will create both
challenges in our existing businesses, as well as new
opportunities for growth. Full implementation of these
regulations may be delayed and consequently create an
uncertain environment for our businesses.
The following discusses our 2017 outlook for each of our
segments:
Market Services
Economic and political uncertainty continue to weigh on the
global economy and the debate over future fiscal and monetary
policy in the U.S. and Europe continues. We believe that our
diversified businesses position us well to compete in an
uncertain market environment. If increased levels of market
volatility persist in 2017, many of the asset classes within our
Market Services segment and our Data Products business will
continue to benefit.
NFX continues to experience growth in its energy derivative
products. We enter 2017 with a clear opportunity to increase
the number of clients running on the NFX platform, and we
continue to identify additional products to bring to market.
We expect global markets to continue to be marked by
significant change in 2017, driven primarily by regulatory
initiatives in the U.S. and Europe as recently adopted
regulations and legislation continue to be implemented. These
changes could result in the continued fragmentation of cash
equity markets, and trading could continue to migrate from
exchanges to OTC systems, particularly in the U.S. Conversely,
trading in OTC derivatives could begin to move onto exchanges
and other execution facilities.
Information Services
As we look toward the future, we continue to make progress to
leverage emerging technologies to expand the ways we serve
clients, with our launch of the trading and analytics product
suite, which just begins to leverage machine intelligence in its
logic.
We also continue to make strides in expanding our Index
Licensing and Services business, in particular in our smart-beta
products, which make up a strong portion of our growing assets
under management total. An example of this was launching the
first fixed income product leveraging the DWA relative strength
methodology, in partnership with State Street Corporation.
Corporate Services
In 2016, our Corporate Solutions business launched Nasdaq IR
Insight, our investor relations platform. During 2016, we made
significant progress to enhance the client experience. In doing
both of these, we created an architectural foundation for our
next generation corporate solutions products going forward. In
addition, we continued to invest in our Public Relations and
Governance businesses through our acquisitions of
Marketwired and Boardvantage.
Growth in our Corporate Services segment will depend on a
positive economic outlook and a lower level of merger and
acquisition transactions.
Volatility in the markets will have a negative impact on the pace
of IPOs and consequently on the opportunities for revenue
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