Sep 9, 2025, 2:04 AM ETFireside Chat, Interview, Conference Presentation

Nasdaq CEO Reveals the Next Era Of The Stock Market - Adena Friedman | All-In Summit

Adina Friedman, CEO of NASDAQ, oversees a company with over $2.5 billion in EBITDA as of the end of the prior year, having grown significantly from her start as CEO.
NASDAQ has evolved from a pure market operator into a global infrastructure provider, selling market technology to 17 domestic markets and 135 international markets.
The company's index business manages approximately $700 billion in assets tied to innovation-driven companies.
NASDAQ is expanding into "architect of modern markets" services, including anti-financial crime technology and market surveillance for the banking and broker-dealer sectors.

NASDAQ announced a strategic initiative to integrate tokenized equities directly into core markets, rather than side vehicles, to modernize post-trade processing.
The company is progressing toward a "24/5" trading model (opening Saturdays and closing Sundays), following a shift to 24/5 futures trading.
Future expansion to a "24/7" trading environment is considered a long-term goal, though the company emphasizes "walking before running" regarding operational stability.
The current U.S. official trading day (9:34 AM to 4:00 PM) will remain in place to facilitate net asset value (NAV) calculations for mutual funds.
NASDAQ's infrastructure handled 95 billion messages in a single day with a median order-to-trade latency of 20 microseconds, processing 3 million messages per second.

The IPO market faces pressure from companies staying private longer (e.g., Uber, SpaceX, Stripe) due to the perceived regulatory and disclosure burdens of going public.
NASDAQ advocates for disclosure, proxy, and litigation reforms to "lighten the load" and reduce the "Rubicon" effect of becoming a public company.
Direct listings with capital raises and SPACs are viewed as viable alternatives to traditional IPOs, with potential for "tokenized direct listings" in the future.
Friedman expresses strong optimism regarding SEC Chair Gary Gensler's forward-leaning approach and desire to create "rules of the road" for crypto and tokenized securities.
NASDAQ currently avoids direct participation in unregulated crypto trading due to investor protection mandates, preferring to bring institutional clients and tokenized securities into the regulated ecosystem once clarity exists.

NASDAQ Private Markets focuses on working directly with issuers to manage liquidity for employees and early investors while maintaining issuer control over shareholder composition.
The company utilizes Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) to facilitate secondary sales of private shares (e.g., OpenAI, SpaceX) while ensuring the issuer retains final approval on the cap table.
This approach contrasts with providers who facilitate "going around" company CFOs, emphasizing the importance of issuer consent in the private context.

The market has shifted toward index investing, making it difficult for active managers to beat benchmarks like the Nasdaq 100, which has delivered a 14.25% annual return over the last 40 years.
Friedman notes that while index investing increases accessibility, active management remains necessary to provide alpha and correct market imbalances.
Prediction markets (binary yes/no) are viewed as more accessible to retail investors compared to complex options markets, which layer bets across multiple price points and durations.
The SEC and CFTC are collaborating to establish a unified regulatory paradigm for prediction markets and alternative asset classes.

Friedman maintains a strong conviction in the U.S. dollar's persistence as the global reserve currency, citing the strength of the U.S. economy, the rule of law, and institutional stability.
While acknowledging concerns regarding U.S. debt levels, she believes these pressures will drive market evolution rather than a fundamental de-dollarization.
The Federal Reserve is described as highly data-driven and apolitical, utilizing diverse private and public data sources to inform monetary policy decisions.
Friedman supports Fed independence, arguing that the six-year chair term allows for long-term thinking detached from political cycles.
Regarding systemic risk, the Fed currently focuses on "too big to fail" banks rather than leveraged hedge funds, viewing the distribution of risk as mitigated by regulatory oversight.
Commercial real estate risks are viewed as cyclical; the sector is described as manageable given the large number of banks involved and the expectation of eased pressure as interest rates potentially decline.