Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) vs. Its Rivals Financial Review

Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE) is one of 1,746 public companies in the “Capital Markets” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare Intercontinental Exchange to similar companies based on the strength of its earnings, risk, valuation, profitability, institutional ownership, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

89.3% of Intercontinental Exchange shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 30.6% of shares of all “Capital Markets” companies are held by institutional investors. 0.8% of Intercontinental Exchange shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 13.1% of shares of all “Capital Markets” companies are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Intercontinental Exchange and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Intercontinental Exchange	1	3	12	1	2.76
Intercontinental Exchange Competitors	5623	20221	22578	651	2.37

Intercontinental Exchange currently has a consensus target price of $189.25, suggesting a potential upside of 6.06%. As a group, “Capital Markets” companies have a potential upside of 23.51%. Given Intercontinental Exchange’s peers higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Intercontinental Exchange has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Profitability

This table compares Intercontinental Exchange and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Intercontinental Exchange	29.62%	15.32%	2.71%
Intercontinental Exchange Competitors	314.70%	9.80%	3.42%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Intercontinental Exchange and its peers top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Intercontinental Exchange	$12.64 billion	$3.31 billion	24.34
Intercontinental Exchange Competitors	$2.38 billion	$397.48 million	15.02

Intercontinental Exchange has higher revenue and earnings than its peers. Intercontinental Exchange is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Risk & Volatility

Intercontinental Exchange has a beta of 0.84, meaning that its stock price is 16% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Intercontinental Exchange’s peers have a beta of 0.81, meaning that their average stock price is 19% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Intercontinental Exchange pays an annual dividend of $2.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.2%. Intercontinental Exchange pays out 28.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Capital Markets” companies pay a dividend yield of 3.2% and pay out 29.2% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Intercontinental Exchange has raised its dividend for 9 consecutive years.

Summary

Intercontinental Exchange beats its peers on 10 of the 15 factors compared.

About Intercontinental Exchange

Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE) operates exchanges, clearing houses and technology businesses serving financial and commodity markets. Its platforms support the trading and clearing of futures, options and other products across areas such as energy, agriculture, interest rates and equities. The company also provides market data, analytics and connectivity services to financial institutions and other market participants. Intercontinental Exchange owns the New York Stock Exchange and operates exchanges and clearing houses in multiple markets around the world.