Divergent Capital
Private Investor & Writer, Capital-Light Businesses & Special Situations
Cboe Global Markets' strategic realignment should lift returns by exiting or scaling back non-core, lower-return businesses. It is selling Cboe Canada and Cboe Australia to TMX for about $300M, cutting about 20% of staff, and expects a 12-14% annualized cut in adjusted operating expenses versus 2025, or $100-120M of savings. It has net cash, and SEC approval for extended trading hours in about 20 popular single-stock options, including the Magnificent 7, adds a new opportunity. x.comÂ
Cboe Global Markets is the primary winner of the long-term boom in options trading, owning a toll booth that takes a cut of every trade. Once its platform is built, each extra transaction costs almost nothing, giving exceptional margins, and exclusive rights to products like the VIX and S&P 500 options can't be copied. More traders deepen liquidity in a network effect. It also tends to do well when markets panic, making it a good portfolio hedge. CME Group and Nasdaq are strong competitors. … Show more
Cboe Global Markets is an underrated stock. Per @Kalshi_Finance, it jumped 10% premarket after extending its S&P 500 options license through 2051. x.comÂ
Intercontinental Exchange, CME Group and Cboe are in the first inning of a de-rating, as the rush to defend them against crypto perpetual futures competition shows. With few near-term catalysts to make them work, they are worth revisiting in 12-24 months. x.comÂ
Intercontinental Exchange is an overlooked, high-quality name in the financial infrastructure selloff. It runs 12 regulated exchanges and marketplaces, most notably the NYSE, and is still led by founder Jeffrey Sprecher, who built it from the struggling Continental Power Exchange bought for $1,000 in 1997. Nasdaq's passive QQQ flows have weighed on the NYSE, but the NYSE is not going anywhere and its popularity picks up during tech routs. x.comÂ
Cboe and MIAX stand to benefit long term as wealth passes from risk-averse generations to more risk-seeking ones. Baby boomers hold at least $93 trillion in assets, per Visa, more than Gen X and millennials combined. Barriers to entry remain substantial, since only a few exchange groups run the US listed-options market and few genuinely new operators have entered in 15 years. x.com x.comÂ
CME, Cboe and ICE face disruption from regulated perpetual futures, which could undermine their business model. On May 29 the CFTC approved Kalshi's US Bitcoin perpetual and gave Coinbase a no-action letter for offshore perps. Perps traded about $92.9 trillion in 2025, and Kraken is launching CFTC-regulated contracts too. Markets see Cboe as most exposed, then CME and ICE; Cboe fell over 17% in a week. Stock perps could eventually challenge CME and Cboe S&P 500 products. x.comÂ
Cboe Global Markets looks like a pretty decent long-term buy at current levels, according to a quantitative screening model. x.comÂ
Cboe Global Markets' drop on futures launches by Coinbase and Kalshi looks overdone. Coinbase depends on crypto while Cboe is half as expensive, and it is doubtful prediction-market players will attract many futures traders. The price is holding support, making this a low-risk entry. x.comÂ
Cboe's fundamentals are inflecting positively and should stay attractive if the war worsens or fails to improve, while the competitive threat won't move serious volume. Many of the policies behind that threat are likely to be rolled back within the next few years, and Cboe has also been a takeover target. x.comÂ
Intercontinental Exchange's stock has been hurt by Jeffrey Sprecher worsening its business mix, since visionaries tend to take a view that is sometimes too long-term for public market investors. Mortgage technology could still work out, but given industry inertia it is more of a long-term call option. The MarketAxess deal is a positive, as it skews the business back toward exchanges. x.comÂ