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TW, Tradeweb Markets Inc.
We are a leader in building and operating electronic marketplaces for our global network of clients across the financial ecosystem.
We support our clients by providing solutions across the trade lifecycle, including pre-trade, execution, post-trade and data and analytics.
Our platform provides transparent, efficient, cost-effective and compliant trading solutions across multiple products, regions and regulatory regimes.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Next report Est. 10/26–11/2 · the 10-Q for the quarter ended late September · due within 40 days of period end · has filed ~30 days after · the wire records it on arrival
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What it is
- Revenue is led by Transaction Fee Revenue (83%) and Subscription fees (11%), with 2 more lines behind.
- What moves the needle
- Trading volume and the data franchise. What decides it: volumes across its markets, which spike when volatility does; the network economics of a deep liquidity pool rivals cannot easily replicate; and the recurring, high-margin market-data and listing fees layered on top. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Operating margin has held high for a exchange (median 34% across the record). It earns this on little capital, so return on equity has run near 6%, the leverage of a model that needs almost no plant to grow. A high return that does not fade can mark a moat, but whether the volumes and the data franchise hold their pricing is what the 10-K settles, not the multiple.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →Transaction Fee Revenue is 83% of revenue, with Subscription fees the other meaningful line at 11%.
- Transaction Fee Revenue83%$1.7B
- Subscription fees11%$234M
- Market Data Revenue5%$93M
- Other1%$25M
From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2017–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2017’17 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMJun 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||
| $504M | $776M | $893M | $1.1B | $1.2B | $1.3B | $1.7B | $2.1B | $2.2B | RevenueRevenue |
| 17.7% | 24.5% | 29.5% | 33.3% | 34.7% | 37.8% | 39.3% | 40.7% | 43.7% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| 16.6% | 10.8% | 18.6% | 21.1% | 26.0% | 27.3% | 29.1% | 39.6% | 40.7% | Net marginNet mgn |
| $90M | $225M | $274M | $370M | $437M | $548M | $754M | $1.2B | — | Pretax incomePretax |
| $84M | $84M | $166M | $227M | $309M | $365M | $502M | $813M | $897M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 7% | 23% | 20% | 26% | 18% | 23% | 24% | 22% | 24% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||
| $211M | $295M | $432M | $561M | $610M | $728M | $857M | $1.1B | $1.1B | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| ($46M) | ($44M) | ($63M) | ($259M) | ($60M) | ($133M) | ($969M) | ($127M) | — | Investing cash flowInv. cash |
| ($153M) | ($218M) | ($53M) | ($136M) | ($277M) | ($168M) | ($290M) | ($307M) | — | Financing cash flowFin. cash |
| $3M | $2M | $3M | ($2M) | ($11M) | $4M | ($4M) | $11M | — | Exchange-rate effectFX |
| $29M | $50M | $331M | $181M | $285M | $449M | ($366M) | $744M | — | Change in cashΔ cash |
| — | 2% | 4% | 5% | 6% | 7% | 9% | 12% | 14% | Return on equityROE |
| — | 1% | 3% | 3% | 5% | 5% | 7% | 11% | 12% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||
| — | $5.1B | $5.7B | $6.0B | $6.3B | $7.1B | $7.3B | $8.2B | $8.3B | Total assetsAssets |
| $354M | $461M | $791M | $972M | $1.3B | $1.7B | $1.3B | $2.1B | $2.1B | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| — | $503M | $661M | $681M | $714M | $1.1B | $869M | $1.0B | — | Total liabilitiesTotal liab. |
| — | $1.2B | $716M | $663M | $593M | $558M | $599M | $681M | — | Noncontrolling interestsNCI |
| — | $3.4B | $4.3B | $4.6B | $5.0B | $5.4B | $5.8B | $6.5B | $6.6B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||
| 216M | 157M | 188M | 207M | 208M | 213M | 215M | 215M | 213M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $2.34 | $4.95 | $4.74 | $5.19 | $5.70 | $6.29 | $8.03 | $9.55 | $10.36 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $0.39 | $0.54 | $0.88 | $1.09 | $1.48 | $1.72 | $2.33 | $3.78 | $4.21 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $0.98 | $1.89 | $2.29 | $2.71 | $2.93 | $3.42 | $3.99 | $5.24 | $5.37 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| — | $0.23 | $0.31 | $0.31 | $0.32 | $0.36 | $0.40 | $0.48 | $0.52 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| — | $21.58 | $22.86 | $22.41 | $23.77 | $25.27 | $26.99 | $30.28 | $31.14 | Book value / shareBVPS |
| 8-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +19.2%/yr | +15.0%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | +23.3%/yr | +18.0%/yr |
| EPS | +32.9%/yr | +33.8%/yr |
| Dividends / share | +12.9%/yr (6-yr) | +9.1%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | +14.8%/yr | +25.3%/yr |
| Book value / share | +5.8%/yr (6-yr) | +5.8%/yr |
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
Is it a good business?
- Operating margin 40.7%Wide fee margin (≥30%)Operating income $835M ÷ revenue $2.1BIndustry peers: median 25%
What this means
The heart of a exchange: how much of each fee dollar survives the cost of running the business. Revenue is a toll on trading volume plus the recurring market-data and listing fees the venue generates, protected by the network economics of a deep liquidity pool that rivals cannot easily replicate. A high margin held for years, through a market it does not control, is the operational mark of a real franchise.
- Net margin 39.6%WideNet income $813M ÷ revenue $2.1B
What this means
What reaches the owner after tax and interest. For a capital-light fee business this should be a wide share of revenue; when it is thin despite a high operating margin, debt taken on for acquisitions is usually the reason, so read it next to the balance sheet.
- Return on equity 12%SolidNet income $813M ÷ equity $6.5BIndustry peers: median 13%
What this means
Because the business ties up little capital, a healthy fee stream throws off a high return on the equity behind it. Read it with the buyback record: returning capital lifts this ratio honestly, but heavy debt taken to do so can flatter it.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Acquisitions & goodwill
from the balance sheet & the 8-year cash-flow recordGoodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.
None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.
Beside that spending sits $775M of cumulative amortization of acquired intangibles charged against earnings since fiscal 2019 — the purchase price of past deals, expensed over time. The cash figure above counts only cash consideration: goodwill of $3.2B against it says much of the buying was paid for in stock, which never passes through the cash-flow statement.
Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and amortization summed across the company's full tagged history, write-downs across the 8-year record, from the company's own filings.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.
| Fiscal year | Chief executive | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Mr. Hult | $14.8M | $110.3M | $561M |
| 2022 | Mr. Hult | $17.4M | −$6.6M | $610M |
| 2023 | Mr. Hult | $14.3M | $25.8M | $728M |
| 2024 | Mr. Hult | $16.7M | $41.8M | $857M |
| 2025 | Mr. Hult | $20.6M | $4.7M | $1.1B |
Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership0.2%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- CEO pay ratio87:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
- Stock-based compensation$104M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares in fiscal 2025, 5.0% of revenue, equal to 12.4% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Revenue recognition, Income taxes, Stock compensation as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Capital Markets & Asset Management
The same industry, side by side on fee margins. Each column names the period it is read over; the group median at the foot is the line to read each figure against.
| Company | Revenuelatest FY, USD | Op. marginmedian over the record | Net marginmedian over the record | ROEmedian over the record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NDAQNasdaq Inc. | $8.3B | 24.4% | 17.8% | 13% |
| CMECME Group Inc. | $6.5B | 60.9% | 54.9% | 10% |
| CBOECboe Global Markets Inc. | $4.7B | 22.4% | 16.7% | 14% |
| BGCBGC Group Inc. | $2.4B | 13.4% | 5.3% | 11% |
| AMGAffiliated Managers Group Inc. | $2.1B | 43.8% | 24.3% | 17% |
| TWTradeweb Markets Inc. | $2.1B | 34.0% | 23.5% | 6% |
| MRXMarex Group plc | $2.0B | 52.0% | 12.9% | 20% |
| STEPStepStone Group | $2.0B | 25.0% | 0.0% | 0% |
| Group median | — | 29.5% | 17.2% | 12% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFType today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Tradeweb Markets Inc. has delivered.
Through the cycle, Tradeweb Markets Inc. earns about $1.0B on its 50.5% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 54.9% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.
—
9.0% = the 4.71% 10-year Treasury (Aug 18, 2026) + 4.29 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.
Enter a price above to run it.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.
Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.71%, as of Aug 18, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.
Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.
Free cash flow $1.1B on 213M shares outstanding (a weighted basic average, the only count this filer tags); net cash $2.1B. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($51M) runs well above depreciation ($247M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $1.2B, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.
Manual order: ← TVTX its page in the Manual TWFG →
Industry order: ← TROW the Capital Markets & Asset Management chapter UPST →