Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (CBOE): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $310.45, Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (CBOE) is priced for -0.7% growth. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating; individual model outputs and user-controlled scenarios are analytical inputs, not Boothcheck targets. Narrative composed 2026-07-25.

Generated: 2026-08-30 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/CBOE

Headline

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

The operating-margin figure is value-band context at year 11: derived from the framework's value band, a separate calculation — not part of the priced-in solve.

Solve inputs: computed at a 7.3% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage.

How unusual the bet is: n/a

Valuation X-Ray

The price is justified by relative-multiple and growth-DCF; asset-based/earnings-power land below the price.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

Families that justify the price: Relative, Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 8.7%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=15)

Economic-Unit Decomposition (Sum Of The Parts)

One or more material disclosed units has unresolved economics. Unknown/general is not evidence of homogeneity: segment SOTP is primary but incomplete, consolidated cash flow may remain only a secondary cross-check when every unit shares an enterprise basis, and one sector multiple or target margin is withheld.

No total common-equity value is stated. One or more material units lack a supported unit value. The displayed values are an indicative subtotal; consolidated debt and cash cannot be applied to a fraction of the company.

Solvency

Bullet Takeaways

• Roughly 74% of revenues less cost of revenues came from the transaction and clearing business in 2025, and the 10-K describes that business as heavily oriented toward U.S. index and equity options, which makes one product family the engine of the whole company.
• Today's price works out to about 18.6 times operating income and asks for company-wide operating growth of roughly 0.3% a year over five years, so the demand on the business is persistence rather than expansion.
• Second-quarter results are due before the open on July 31, 2026, following record monthly and quarterly U.S. options volumes reported in June.

Bull Case

Sort the valuation methods by what each one actually measures and this price falls along a clean fault line. The approaches that value the balance sheet, and the approaches that capitalize today's profit while crediting no growth at all, both land well under $285.61. The peer-multiple approaches land essentially on top of it. The approaches that project cash flow forward land above it. That split is information rather than noise: the market is paying for an earnings stream it expects to keep arriving, not for assets and not for a one-off spike.

What makes that persistence plausible is that Cboe owns the products rather than renting them. The exchange runs SPX index options and the VIX complex, and the FY2025 10-K notes it pioneered the trading of exchange-traded volatility products with its introduction of VIX futures in 2004. Proprietary products do not have to compete on price the way a multi-listed contract does, because the contract only exists in one place. The company has been widening the surface too, adding expirations across the week on the reasoning that these additional expirations provide customers with more precision when hedging overall portfolio risk. More expiries means more reasons to trade, and each trade carries a fee.

Underneath the trading business sits a quieter one that does not depend on any single day's volume. The 10-K reports that Access and capacity fees increased primarily due to increased logical and physical port fees in the Options, North American Equities, and Europe and Asia Pacific segments driven by increased customer demand, alongside higher proprietary market data fees. Ports and data feeds are subscriptions. A trading firm connected to an exchange pays whether or not it trades that morning, and it does not disconnect during a quiet quarter because reconnecting costs more than staying.

Profitability holds up in the cohort once the accounting is read properly. The reported operating margin of 32.8% looks middling against CME at 65.6% and ICE at 41.1%, but a chunk of Cboe's reported revenue never belongs to it: the filing explains that the company recognizes the amount that we are charged under Section 31 as a cost of revenues and the corresponding amount that we charge our customers as regulatory transaction fees revenue, so the same dollars appear on both lines and inflate the denominator. Measured against the revenue the company actually keeps, the economics sit far closer to the top of the group than the headline ratio suggests. NDAQ, on its own reported basis, earns 29.4%.

The balance sheet is not doing anything clever, which for an exchange is the point. Operating income covers interest roughly 30 times over, the company holds net cash rather than net borrowings, and the share count has edged down about 0.4% a year across the last four years while a quarterly dividend of $0.72 a share goes out the door. An exchange is a clearing and matching utility whose customers must trust it to be there tomorrow. Financial conservatism is part of the product.

Bear Case

The variable with the most leverage over this business is not the economy or the rate cycle. It is the rulebook, and Washington writes it. The FY2025 10-K lists among the risks to results that implementation of the SEC's reduced equity access fee cap and other potential market structure changes may lead to decreased exchange revenue. That is a regulator setting a ceiling on what an exchange may charge for connectivity, which is precisely the recurring revenue line the bull case rests on. The filing also flags that changes to Regulation NMS Rule 611, the order protection rule, could hit operations, even after the SEC withdrew its Regulation Best Execution and Order Competition proposals on June 12, 2025. A withdrawn proposal is not a repealed idea.

The concentration underneath makes rule changes travel further than they look. The company states that in 2025 approximately 74% of our revenues less cost of revenues were generated by our transaction and clearing-based business, heavily oriented toward U.S. index and equity options. A single regulatory shift in how those options are quoted, routed or priced does not trim a segment; it moves three quarters of the net revenue base.

Then there is the licence question, which most holders never think about. The economics of the proprietary complex rest on exclusivity, and the 10-K says so directly: the risks include losing the S&P 500 Index licence, and separately, if we are unable to retain exclusive proprietary rights in the VIX Index methodology and related products and indices, competitors could build substantially similar volatility products. The moat here is contractual and intellectual rather than physical. Contracts expire and intellectual property gets litigated.

Competition is already probing from the multi-listed side. The filing acknowledges rivals offering multi-listed options products, such as SPY options, which offer some of the features of our proprietary products, such as SPX options, and notes that to defend share the company may resort to inverted pricing specials or non-transaction-fee trading. NDAQ states in its own 10-K that its combined options market share in 2025 represented the largest share of the U.S. market for multi-listed equity options. MIAX, the smallest listed comparison, grew revenue 17.5% over its trailing year against Cboe's more measured pace. New venues do not need to win; they only need to make pricing competitive.

Which is where the price comes in. At about 18.6 times operating income the market is asking for company-wide operating growth of only around 0.3% a year over five years, so this is not a stretched multiple demanding heroics. But the requirement is not zero either: it is that today's earnings power persists indefinitely, on a 32.8% reported operating margin built during a stretch of exceptionally heavy options activity. Record volumes are the numerator of a cyclical business. If access fees get capped, or the volatility complex loses its exclusivity, or trading simply quiets down, the earnings that the peer-multiple lens is capitalizing shrink, and the multiple compresses on the smaller base at the same time. Two things moving the same direction is how a modest-looking valuation becomes an expensive one.

Valuation

The demand this price places on the business is unusually light. At around 18.6 times operating income, the assumption embedded is company-wide operating growth of roughly 0.3% a year across five years, computed at a cost of capital in the low sevens. Treat the figure as approximate, because it is one solve under fixed assumptions, but the shape of it is the point: nobody is being asked to double anything. The business simply has to keep earning what it earns.

Where the methods land tells you what kind of business the market thinks it is buying. The price sits roughly 125% above where the asset-value approaches come out, and about 64% above the earnings-power lens that capitalizes current profit with no growth credited. Neither of those is surprising for an exchange, because an exchange's value has almost nothing to do with its book: there is no factory, no inventory, and the productive asset is a rulebook, a licence and a matching engine. The approaches that do fit, peer multiples and forward cash flow, land at the price and above it respectively. When the asset-based lenses come out low and the cash-flow lenses come out high, the premium being paid is for durability of a fee stream, not for anything a balance sheet can show.

Reading the reported margin requires one adjustment the headline does not make. The trailing operating margin is 32.8%, but Section 31 regulatory fees pass through both the revenue and the cost lines at identical amounts, per the 10-K, so the reported revenue base is larger than the revenue the company keeps. That is why the ratio sits below CME at 65.6% while the underlying economics do not. The comparison that survives is the one on net revenue, and on that basis the trading and clearing business the filing says produced roughly 74% of revenues less cost of revenues is a high-margin operation by any standard.

Solvency bounds the downside without much drama. Operating income covers interest roughly 30 times over, the company carries net cash rather than net debt, and the share count has drifted down about 0.4% a year over four years. There is no refinancing risk here and no dilution to clear. What the balance sheet does not do is protect the fee stream, and the fee stream is what the price is capitalizing. The most decisive number in this report is therefore not a multiple at all: it is the 74% concentration in transaction and clearing revenue tied to U.S. index and equity options, because that is the figure a rule change or a quiet market acts on first.

Catalysts

Volume has been running hot into the print. The company reported record monthly and quarterly U.S. options volumes in late June, and May trading set a record average daily volume of 22.0 million U.S. options contracts, with multi-listed options up 25.7% year over year. June activity showed growth in global equities and foreign exchange as well. Second-quarter results arrive before the open on July 31, 2026. Volume translates to revenue through revenue per contract, and the mix between proprietary index products and lower-fee multi-listed contracts is what decides how much of the record volume actually reaches the income statement.

Product launches are widening the surface the fee stream runs across. Daily expirations for Dow Jones Industrial Average index options began in May, and in June the company introduced Cboe Predicts, a prediction-markets suite built on binary options on the Mini-S&P 500 Index. The SEC also approved extended trading hours on selected single-stock options, with a launch planned for July 13, 2026. Each of these adds trading occasions rather than new customers, which is the cheaper way to grow an exchange.

Capital return and governance ran on schedule. The board declared a second-quarter dividend of $0.72 a share, payable June 15, 2026, and shareholders elected all twelve nominated directors at the May annual meeting. The company also filled two positions that matter for a regulated venue, hiring a Chief Risk Officer in May and appointing a head of government relations earlier the same month. Given how much of this business is decided by market-structure rulemaking, the second appointment is less routine than it reads.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Options (reported)

• ICE (Intercontinental Exchange Inc)
• FY2025 10-K: …markets and securities professionals. We (or the Options Clearing Corporation, or OCC, on our behalf), in turn, collect activity assessment fees, which are included in exchanges revenues in the accompanying consolidated statements of income, from member organizations clearing or settling trades on the U.S. equities…
• FY2025 10-K: 1,037 2027 2,000 2028 2,200 2029 1,250 2030 1,250 Thereafter 12,150 Principal amounts repayable 19,887 Unamortized debt issuance costs and discounts ( 243 ) Total debt outstanding $ 19,644 11. Share-Based Compensation The non-cash compensation expenses recognized in our consolidated statements of income for stock…
• CME (CME Group Inc)
• FY2025 10-K: …traders, financial institutions, individual and institutional investors, major corporations, manufacturers, producers, governments and central banks. Customers include both members of the exchange and non-members. We offer our customers the opportunity to trade futures contracts and options contracts on a range of…
• FY2025 10-K: …markets, their methods of trading and the products they trade. Consequently, members may advocate that we enhance and protect their clearing and trading opportunities and the value of their trading privileges over their investment in our Class A common stock, if any. Our members have been granted special rights,…
• NDAQ (Nasdaq, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …expenses. We are assessed these fees from the SEC and pass them through to our customers in the form of incremental fees. Pass-through fees can increase or decrease due to rate changes by the SEC, our percentage of the overall industry volumes processed on our systems, and differences in actual dollar value traded.…
• FY2025 10-K: …other exchange operators, operators of non-exchange trading systems and banks and brokerages that operate their own internal trading pools and platforms. In the U.S., our options markets compete with exchanges operated by Cboe Global Markets, Inc., or CBOE , Miami International Holdings, Inc., or MIAX,…
• MIAX (Miami International Holdings, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …$1.2 million in warrants. (3) The Futures segment includes $0.1 million in stock options, and $0.1 million in restricted stock awards. The International segment includes less than $0.1 million in both stock options and restricted stock awards. The Corporate / Other segment includes $0.9 million in stock options, and…
• FY2025 10-K: …providers for key services to its customers. With respect to options traded on national securities exchanges, all contracts traded on our MIAX Exchanges must be cleared through clearing members of OCC. Should one of these clearing members or liquidity providers exit the business, withdraw from our options exchanges…

North American Equities (reported)

• ICE (Intercontinental Exchange Inc)
• FY2025 10-K: …exchanges, or collectively, the NYSE, and various data and connectivity services that are directly related to those exchange platforms. Revenues reflect a mix of both diversified transaction revenues and recurring data and listings revenues. Our Exchanges segment generated revenues, less transaction-based expenses of…
• FY2025 10-K: -trade analytics, an array of execution protocols, and post-trade services all designed to improve asset class transparency and bring efficiency to customers' workflows. In our Mortgage Technology segment, we provide customers with a comprehensive suite of technology offerings which we believe are critical to the…
• NDAQ (Nasdaq, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …MRX. These exchanges facilitate the trading of equity, ETF, index and foreign currency options. Our combined options market share in 2025 represented the largest share of the U.S. market for multi-listed equity options. Our options trading platforms provide trading opportunities to retail investors, algorithmic…
• FY2025 10-K: Baltic. For smaller companies and growth companies, we offer access to the financial markets through the Nasdaq First North alternative marketplaces. As of December 31, 2025 , a total of 1,119 companies listed securities on our Nordic and Baltic exchanges. Our European listing customers include companies, funds and…
• MIAX (Miami International Holdings, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …contracts. Delivery financing receivables represent short-term advances to customers and are generally secured by the underlying commodity and warehouse receipts held by the Company. These amounts are typically repaid within a short period following delivery. At December 31, 2025 and 2024, delivery financing…
• FY2025 10-K: …18.7% for the year ended December 31, 2025 compared to the prior period primarily due to changes in product mix. 84 Table of Contents Our U.S. Equities market share for the year ended December 31, 2025 compared to the prior period decreased to 1.0% from 1.6%. Our Equities capture improved for the year ended December…
• VIRT (Virtu Financial, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …with high quality, low-cost trade executions that enable them to satisfy their fiduciary obligation to seek the best execution on behalf of their customer. We continually refine our automated order routing models so that we may remain competitive. Global Equities We trade over 50,000 listed and over-the-counter…
• FY2025 10-K: …U.S. equities exchanges close early or otherwise operate for less than a full trading day as half-days. Prior periods have not been restated as the impact of the change is immaterial in relation to our average daily Adjusted Net Trading Income. 61 Year Ended December 31, 2025 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2024…

Europe and Asia Pacific (reported)

• ICE (Intercontinental Exchange Inc)
• FY2025 10-K: …Our activities and the markets in which we operate are subject to regulations that impact us as well as our customers, and, in turn, meaningfully influence our activities, the manner in which we operate and our strategy. We are primarily subject to the jurisdiction of regulatory agencies in the U.S., U.K., EU,…
• FY2025 10-K: …and ICE Clear Europe, which clears ICE Endex contracts. These policy interventions include a temporary price cap on certain Dutch Title Transfer Facility, or TTF, derivatives traded on ICE Endex, which expired on January 31, 2025. In addition, in December 2022, a coalition of G7 and other nations set the price of…
• NDAQ (Nasdaq, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …and the creation of new product and service offerings. Our proprietary data products face competition globally from alternative exchanges and trading venues that offer similar products. Our data business competes with other exchanges and third-party vendors to provide information to market participants. Our Listing…
• FY2025 10-K: …European equities include Eurex, Cboe, ICE Futures Europe and London Clearing House, or LCH. In addition, in equities markets in Europe, we face competition from other broker-owned systems, dark pools, Systematic Internalizers, or SIs, and other types of OTC trading. Competition among exchanges for trading European…
• CME (CME Group Inc)
• FY2025 10-K: We believe we compete favorably with respect to these factors. Our deep, liquid markets; diverse and complementary product offerings; frequency and quality of new product development; and efficient, secure clearing, settlement and support services, distinguish us from others in the industry. We believe that in order…
• FY2025 10-K: …deepening our global customer base by: • Offering our broad and diversified portfolio of benchmark products worldwide. Our significant investment in the expansion of our sales organization has resulted in a presence in over 10 countries, including our most recent expansion into the Middle East with the opening of a…
• MIAX (Miami International Holdings, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …miax:OptionsSegmentMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31 0001438472 us-gaap:OperatingSegmentsMember miax:MarketDataFeesMember miax:EquitiesSegmentMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31 0001438472 us-gaap:OperatingSegmentsMember miax:MarketDataFeesMember miax:FuturesSegmentMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31 0001438472…
• FY2025 10-K: …us-gaap:ProductAndServiceOtherMember miax:InternationalSegmentMember 2024-01-01 2024-12-31 0001438472 us-gaap:CorporateNonSegmentMember us-gaap:ProductAndServiceOtherMember 2024-01-01 2024-12-31 0001438472 us-gaap:OperatingSegmentsMember miax:OptionsSegmentMember 2024-01-01 2024-12-31 0001438472…

Futures (reported)

• CME (CME Group Inc)
• FY2025 10-K: …tensions, the anticipation and implementation of tariffs, and uncertain weather conditions in 2025. Finally, we also continued to expand product offerings across many of our asset classes which contributed to volume and sales growth across the globe. We believe these factors contributed to the increase in total…
• FY2025 10-K: …end of the first quarter of 2026, followed by the decommissioning of the legacy on-premises applications. Operating our applications from the Google Cloud allows for a more efficient process to commercialize and launch new products and services. We have also advanced the preparations to move our markets to Google…
• ICE (Intercontinental Exchange Inc)
• FY2025 10-K: …exchanges, or collectively, the NYSE, and various data and connectivity services that are directly related to those exchange platforms. Revenues reflect a mix of both diversified transaction revenues and recurring data and listings revenues. Our Exchanges segment generated revenues, less transaction-based expenses of…
• FY2025 10-K: …regarding oil supply and demand dynamics. - Global natural gas futures and options volume increased 18% in 2025 from 2024. The increase in North American gas volumes was driven by heightened market volatility stemming from geopolitical tensions, while continued expansion in our TTF complex reflected ongoing…
• NDAQ (Nasdaq, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …0001120193 2025 FY FALSE P1Y P3Y P3Y 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 P1Y http://fasb.org/us-gaap/2025#OtherLiabilitiesCurrent http://fasb.org/us-gaap/2025#OtherLiabilitiesCurrent iso4217:USD xbrli:shares iso4217:USD xbrli:shares ndaq:segment ndaq:company ndaq:exchangeTradedProduct…
• FY2025 10-K: SharesMember 2023-01-01 2023-12-31 0001120193 us-gaap:PerformanceSharesMember ndaq:ThreeYearPerformanceShareUnitProgramMember us-gaap:SubsequentEventMember 2026-01-01 2026-03-31 0001120193 ndaq:TwoYearPSUMember us-gaap:PerformanceSharesMember 2023-01-01 2023-12-31 0001120193 us-gaap:PerformanceSharesMember…
• MIAX (Miami International Holdings, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …18.7% for the year ended December 31, 2025 compared to the prior period primarily due to changes in product mix. 84 Table of Contents Our U.S. Equities market share for the year ended December 31, 2025 compared to the prior period decreased to 1.0% from 1.6%. Our Equities capture improved for the year ended December…
• FY2025 10-K: …Futures transaction and clearing fees primarily due to lower clearing revenue from Dorman Trading. • $34.4 million decrease in Equities transaction and clearing fees primarily as a result of a 37.5% decrease in MIAX Pearl Equities market share, as well as a 14.1% decrease in gross capture, partially offset by a 43.2%…

Global FX (reported)

• TW (Tradeweb Markets Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …member of the National Futures Association ("NFA"). • Dealerweb LLC ("DW") (formerly known as Hilliard Farber & Co., Inc. and Dealerweb Inc.), a registered broker-dealer under the Exchange Act and a member of FINRA and MSRB. DW is also registered as an introducing broker with the CFTC and a member of the NFA. •…
• FY2025 10-K: …rate at the current period end for the tenor of the contract. Foreign currency forward contracts are categorized as Level 2 in the fair value hierarchy. As of December 31, 2025 and 2024 , the counterparty on each of these foreign exchange derivative contracts was an affiliate of LSEG and therefore the corresponding…
• MKTX (MARKETAXESS HOLDINGS INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations. The Company records the fair value of the asset in prepaid expenses and other assets or the fair value of the liability in accounts payable, accrued expenses and other liabilities in the Consolidated Statements of Financial Condition. The following table…
• FY2025 10-K: …U.S. dollar and Euro versus British Pound Sterling exposure from the activities of our U.K. subsidiaries. As of December 31, 2025, the notional amounts of our foreign currency forward contracts were $94.2 million. We also may enter into interest rate swap agreements to manage our exposure to the effect of interest…
• VIRT (Virtu Financial, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …ETPs. Global Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities ( " FICC " ), Options, and Other Our Fixed Income market making includes our activity in U.S. Treasury securities and other sovereign debt, corporate bonds, and other debt instruments. We trade these products on a variety of specialized exchanges, direct to…
• FY2025 10-K: …2024-01-01 2024-12-31 0001592386 us-gaap:ForeignExchangeForwardMember us-gaap:AssetNotPledgedAsCollateralMember 2024-12-31 0001592386 us-gaap:OptionMember us-gaap:AssetNotPledgedAsCollateralMember us-gaap:FairValueInputsLevel1Member 2024-12-31 0001592386 us-gaap:OptionMember us-gaap:AssetNotPledgedAsCollateralMember…
• BGC (BGC Group, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …higher volumes across all major interest rate products, including strong double-digit growth in G10 interest rate products, emerging market products and repo products. Our FX revenues increased by $69.3 million, or 19.3%, to $428.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2025, as compared to the year ended December…
• FY2025 10-K: …in the fourth quarter with ADV and open interest increasing 82% and 97%, respectively, versus the third quarter of 2025. • FMX FX ADV increased by 40% to a fourth quarter record of $15.5 billion driven by strong growth across spot FX and non-deliverable forward volumes. • PortfolioMatch ADV grew by 68% in the fourth…
• ICE (Intercontinental Exchange Inc)
• FY2025 10-K: …Currency Transaction Gains and Losses Our functional and reporting currency is the U.S. dollar. We have exposure to foreign currency translation gains and losses arising from our net investment in certain U.K., continental European, Asian and Canadian subsidiaries. The revenues, expenses and financial results of…
• FY2025 10-K: …revenues and profitability fluctuate with changes in contract volume and product mix. We consider data and connectivity services revenues and listings revenues to be recurring revenues. Our data and connectivity services revenues are recurring subscription fees related to the services that we provide which are…

Methodology Note

• Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
• Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
• Economic-unit decomposition (SOTP): each disclosed business unit is assigned its native valuation basis before any multiple is applied. Operating units are valued on enterprise value; funded financial units are valued on their own common equity, because their borrowings fund earning assets rather than levering the parent. A company total is stated only once every material unit carries a supported value and the parent capital bridge reconciles.
• Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
• Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.