Of course, NASDAQ has plenty of other assets, such as its ownership of not just one but three of the national exchange registrations (it bought BX and PHLX). Not to mention all the US companies which are listed on NASDAQ (there may be a bunch of places to trade them, but NASDAQ is "home" to Apple, Facebook, etc.).
>They do a good-sized business selling their technical systems to other markets
that's a lot like saying that because IBM and HP, ITC and TCS do a lot of contracting of the outsourced worker variety, their value is in the technical people they hire.
The value is in the connections, the name, the fact that large companies will pay a lot for my time, if they are buying that time from a company like IBM or HP, ITC or TCS, while they won't pay anything for the exact same time sold direct through prgmr.com.
The value is that relationship and reputation. The value is that if you hire those companies and things go south, your boss won't blame you for taking a risk on an unknown brand.
Quite a bit. They do a good-sized business selling their technical systems to other markets (mostly outside the US). An example from the opposite side of the globe: http://www.world-exchanges.org/news-views/bursa-malaysia-sel... .
Of course, NASDAQ has plenty of other assets, such as its ownership of not just one but three of the national exchange registrations (it bought BX and PHLX). Not to mention all the US companies which are listed on NASDAQ (there may be a bunch of places to trade them, but NASDAQ is "home" to Apple, Facebook, etc.).