Nasdaq beats Q1 estimates, stock trades higher

Yahoo Finance Live anchors Julie Hyman and Brad Smith discuss the rise in stock for Nasdaq.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: Let's talk about another company in finance. NASDAQ shares on the move after beating estimates on the top and bottom line. It also announced a 10% increase in its quarterly dividend to $0.22 per share. Those shares are moving higher here this morning.

You, of course, are an alum of--

BRAD SMITH: I am. Many days and nights.

JULIE HYMAN: --NASDAQ. What stood out to you from the number? [LAUGHS]

BRAD SMITH: [LAUGHS] No. I'm shaking my head, but no, no, no, a great time there. You know, from the numbers, one thing that I usually zero in-- and this is in my own biased, kind of, look in at NASDAQ-- it's the division that I worked in, which was global listing services. This is basically the part of the business that really accounts for a lot of the IPOs, the new listings, the transfer listings that end up coming to the exchange.

And ultimately, here, within the company-- I mean, of course, it doesn't necessarily account for the lion's share of their revenue, as they have market technology that they license out to other exchanges around the world, transaction services as well. But I think about the number of unicorns, particularly. I mean, we've been in a relatively dry IPO environment over the past two years, and so it's a larger question of when some of the unicorns that are out there within the US economy, which at the beginning of this year, the US economy had about 1,205 unicorns, which are basically, of course, startups with about a billion-dollar valuation-- so a larger question of when some of those unicorns will begin to say that it's a stable environment for them to enter into the public markets.

And I think that's what a lot of us who cover the markets, as well, are really waiting for that next wave of megacap or at least future megacap tech companies to perhaps enter the throw. And, of course, NASDAQ had been the exchange venue that had really touted itself for many years winning listings within those big tech categories. And so that's something that I'm going to be watching, is when those unicorns begin to make their way into the fray.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah. Well, we had that VC roundtable-- venture capital roundtable-- last week with someone from Pitchfork and someone-- PitchBook.

BRAD SMITH: PitchBook.

JULIE HYMAN: Not the music site.

BRAD SMITH: Pitchfork.

JULIE HYMAN: PitchBook.

BRAD SMITH: Yeah.

JULIE HYMAN: [LAUGHS] And someone from a VC--

BRAD SMITH: "American Gothic" vision's coming into mind.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, right. And someone from a VC. And my takeaway from that is NASDAQ's going to have to wait a little while, right?

BRAD SMITH: Well, yeah.

JULIE HYMAN: Because it seems like that that stuff is not coming to market any time soon.

BRAD SMITH: No. No. This solutions business, though, is something that investors really can focus in on, though. The solutions business revenues, that growing and ultimately seeing about $646 million in the first quarter. That's an increase of about $23 million, 4% there.

And so this as they really prop up more of those services that the business does have. But yeah. Yeah. Old stomping grounds over there in Times Square, where you get to spin move an Elmo on the way into work.