Intercontinental Exchange stock rating upgraded to Strong Buy by Raymond James

Investing.com - Raymond James upgraded Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE) from Outperform to Strong Buy and maintained its price target of $210.00 ahead of the company’s third-quarter 2025 earnings report. The company, currently valued at $90.16 billion, trades at a P/E ratio of 30.31, with analyst targets ranging from $170 to $225.

The upgrade comes despite ICE facing headwinds in the third quarter, including a lack of market volatility and the absence of major hurricanes affecting North America, which negatively impacted the company’s energy futures trading volumes. InvestingPro data shows the company has maintained strong fundamentals, with revenue growing nearly 10% over the last twelve months.

Raymond James views these challenges as temporary, stating that ICE remains well-positioned to capitalize on the globalization of energy trading in the long term. The firm also addressed concerns about artificial intelligence disruption, noting that ICE is unlikely to face significant AI competition.

The recent merger between Rocket Mortgage and Mr. Cooper is expected to serve as a sales catalyst for ICE’s mortgage technology franchise, according to the research firm.

Raymond James highlighted that ICE has built a "robust and diversified platform" capable of driving attractive revenue and earnings growth across various market environments, with shares currently trading at approximately 21 times the firm’s 2026 non-GAAP earnings per share estimate.

In other recent news, Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE) announced a strategic investment of up to $2 billion in the prediction market platform Polymarket. This investment values Polymarket at approximately $8 billion pre-investment and positions ICE as a global distributor of Polymarket’s event-driven data. The collaboration aims to provide institutional investors with sentiment indicators on market-relevant topics and explore future tokenization initiatives. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reiterated an Outperform rating on ICE, maintaining a price target of $202.00. Additionally, ICE reported record open interest across its futures markets for September 2025, with a 15% year-over-year increase, reaching 56.9 million lots. Energy open interest specifically rose 8%, hitting a record 41.0 million lots. Furthermore, The Rt. Hon. the Lord Hill of Oareford CBE has joined ICE’s Board of Directors, expanding the board from 10 to 11 members. Lord Hill currently serves on the Board of Directors of ICE Endex Markets and is expected to join ICE Futures Europe, pending regulatory approval.

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