Every time a trader hedges an interest rate position, a fund dumps equity futures, or a retail account tries to get a piece of the largest IPO in history, someone collects a fee. That someone is not your broker. It is the infrastructure underneath all of it.

The SpaceX IPO is pricing today at $135 per share, a fixed-price offering targeting a $1.77 trillion valuation – what would be the largest public offering ever attempted. 555.6 million Class A shares are set to begin trading on Nasdaq tomorrow under the ticker SPCX, with roughly 30% of the float directed at retail investors. The capital reallocation required to absorb that offering is substantial. Passive funds will have to acquire shares after Nasdaq and FTSE Russell agreed to fast-track index inclusion. That alone drives a surge in index-linked futures activity. Which flows directly to the exchange operators collecting the tolls.

Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE)

ICE operates the New York Stock Exchange and controls some of the most actively traded energy futures markets on the planet. Full-year 2025 net revenues came in at $9.9 billion, up 7% year-over-year – the company’s 20th consecutive year of record revenues. GAAP diluted EPS reached $5.77, a 21% increase from the prior year. Adjusted diluted EPS landed at $6.95, up 14%. Record annual operating cash flow hit $4.7 billion.

What drove it? Volume. In April 2025 alone, ICE reported record total average daily volume up 44% year-over-year, with record energy average daily volume up 41% year-over-year. For the full year, total futures and options average daily volume rose 14%. The company’s president said 2025 was a record year for commodities, energy, and interest rate trading, with record activity in the final quarter across benchmark oil, power, and environmental markets.

The part people skip: ICE is not just an exchange. It operates a mortgage technology platform, fixed income data infrastructure, and a global climate futures market. Transaction fees are the headline, but the data business is what gives the model durability across slow and volatile cycles alike. When energy markets move – due to geopolitical disruption, inflation data, or supply shocks – ICE collects on both the hedgers and the speculators. That is not an accident. It is the architecture.

CME Group (NASDAQ: CME)

CME Group is the world’s largest financial derivatives exchange. Full-year 2025 total revenue came in at $6.5 billion, operating income at $4.2 billion, and full-year diluted EPS at $11.16. Fourth consecutive year of record adjusted annual revenue, adjusted operating income, adjusted net income, and adjusted EPS. Average daily volume grew 6% to 28.1 million contracts, with new records set in interest rates, energy, agriculture, metals, and crypto.

Q2 2025 average daily volume hit a record 30.2 million contracts, up 16% year-over-year. New retail traders entering CME markets increased 57% year-over-year in that same quarter. Clearing and transaction fee revenue for Q3 2025 totaled $1.2 billion at an average rate per contract of $0.702. Every futures or options contract traded and cleared through CME’s infrastructure generates clearing and execution fees – and because CME runs a central clearinghouse, it also earns income from the collateral posted by market participants as margin. When rates are elevated, that secondary income stream expands.

Here is what is interesting about the current environment: CME has enjoyed accelerated revenue growth since 2022, driven specifically by heightened interest rate uncertainty pushing sustained volume growth in rate futures. That tailwind is still alive heading into the second half of 2026. The Fed policy path is not settled. Inflation data remains contested. And now, a $75 billion IPO is reshuffling institutional allocations in real time. Each of those forces is a volume catalyst for CME.

The Structural Case

What makes exchange operators compelling in volatile conditions is the asymmetry of their business model. They do not take directional risk. They charge for access to the market itself – for the privilege of hedging, speculating, or simply moving capital from one place to another. When markets are calm, volumes moderate but still flow. When markets are dislocated, volumes surge. ICE described its model as an “all-weather” business. That is not marketing language. That is what 20 consecutive years of record revenue actually looks like.

The SpaceX IPO is a stress test for market infrastructure at scale. Passive index inclusion, retail allocation at 30% of float, index rebalancing, and a $1.77 trillion debut hitting a market already navigating Fed uncertainty and elevated inflation expectations. Each of those mechanics generates transaction volume. ICE and CME sit at the center of where that volume clears.

The question worth sitting with is not whether these companies benefit from market chaos. That much is clear from the data. The question is how long the current combination of macro uncertainty, capital reallocation, and mega-IPO activity continues to sustain above-average volume – and whether the market has already priced that in.