Earnings Preview: Intercontinental Exchange

By TheFlyOnTheWall

Intercontinental Exchange(ICE) is expected to report Q3 earnings before the market open on Tuesday, November 3 with a conference call scheduled for 8:30 am ET.

Guidance

Analysts are looking for a profit of $1.15 on revenue of $255.72M. The consensus range for EPS is $1.12-$1.21, while the consensus range for revenue is $245.09M-$260.20M, according to First Call. Intercontinental Exchange investors have several reasons to be relatively optimistic about the company's Q3 results. Intercontinental competitor NYSE Euronext (NYX) on Friday reported higher than expected Q3 EPS and revenue. In addition, there are signs that Intercontinental's newly launched CDS clearinghouses are growing quickly. Intercontinental earlier this month said that it had handled more than $3T in credit derivatives this year. The company launched its U.S. credit default swap clearinghouse in March, and it started a European CDS clearinghouse in July. Last month the Wall Street Journal reported that Wall Street banks intend to send all of their swaps through clearinghouses by the end of this year.

Analyst Views

A Keefe Bruyette analyst believes that the derivatives clearinghouses will be a significant business for Intercontinental Exchange, as the firm upgraded the company to Outperform from Market Perform on October 16, citing expectations that derivatives trading will increase in upcoming quarters. Meanwhile, Intercontinental Exchange reported that average daily volume for its futures markets in August jumped 34% year-over-year to just over 1M.