(Reuters) -Intercontinental Exchange, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, beat Wall Street estimates for first-quarter profit on Thursday, boosted by strength in its mortgage technology business and continued market volatility.
ICE’s mortgage technology business continued to benefit from the acquisition of mortgage tech firm Ellie Mae. Revenue in the segment came in at $355 million, up 672% from last year.
The company bought Ellie Mae in an $11-billion deal last year to strengthen its position in mortgage servicing.
The exchange operator also benefited from the market turmoil sparked by the pandemic last year and continued its momentum into the first quarter, partly as an army of retail traders entered the market.
Amateur traders showed their strength earlier this year when they drove up prices of GameStop Corp, the poster child of the retail trading frenzy, as much as 1,600% to punish hedge funds that had bet against the stock.
The exchange segment, ICE’s biggest business, brought in $1.61 billion in revenue, up marginally from last year.
Excluding one-time items, ICE earned $1.34 per share compared with analysts’ average estimate of $1.30 per share, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Total revenue, excluding transaction-based expenses, rose 15% to nearly $1.8 billion.
(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru;Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)
