One Wall Street Investment Manager Is Loading Up on Shares of Nasdaq. Is Now the Time to Buy?

On October 7, 2025, Graphene Investments SAS disclosed a new position in Nasdaq(NASDAQ:NDAQ), acquiring 37,500 shares in a trade estimated at $3.32 million.

What happened

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission dated October 7, 2025, Graphene Investments SAS initiated a new position in Nasdaq, purchasing approximately 37,500 shares. The estimated transaction value, calculated using the quarter’s average price, was $3.32 million. This brings the fund’s total 13F reportable U.S. equity positions to 44 as of September 30, 2025.

What else to know

This new position now accounts for 2.1% of the fund’s 13F reportable assets under management as of September 30, 2025, representing the fund's 15th-largest position overall.

Top five holdings after the filing:

• GOOGL: $9,359,350 (5.9% of AUM) as of September 30, 2025
• AAPL: $7,486,122 (4.7% of AUM) as of September 30, 2025
• MSFT: $6.53 million (4.1% of AUM) as of September 30, 2025
• NVDA: $6.49 million (4.1% of AUM) as of September 30, 2025
• AVGO: $5,674,452 (3.6% of AUM) as of September 30, 2025

As of October 6, 2025, shares of Nasdaq were priced at $88.17, up 24.4% over the past year and outperforming the S&P 500 by 4.2 percentage points.

Company Overview

Company Snapshot

Offers market technology solutions, anti-financial crime SaaS, market data, index licensing, and operates equity and derivatives exchanges.

Generates revenue primarily through transaction fees, technology licensing, data subscriptions, and corporate listing services.

Serves global capital markets participants, including financial institutions, brokers, listed companies, and institutional investors.

Nasdaq is a leading provider of technology and marketplace infrastructure for global capital markets, with a diversified revenue base across technology, data, and exchange operations. The company leverages its expertise in market surveillance and anti-financial crime solutions to support compliance and risk management for financial institutions. Nasdaq’s scale and integrated platform position it as a key player in the evolution of market technology and financial data services.

Foolish take

First things first: When discussing Nasdaq, the stock, we are referring to the company that operates the Nasdaq exchange, not the Nasdaq Composite, which is an index comprising many companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange.

The company known as Nasdaq has an interesting story. It is a consistent outperformer, having racked up a 10-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.4%. That's quite good, and it's a notable outperformer relative to the S&P 500 index, which generated a CAGR of 13.0% over the same ten-year period.

Behind Nasdaq's outperformance lies a business model that primarily deals in data, a commodity in high demand in today's world. Moreover, with the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution gaining momentum, Nasdaq's data — and its ability to license access to it — could become increasingly important.

At any rate, its business is already performing well. Over the last decade, the company has achieved year-over-year revenue growth of 9.9%, with overall revenue increasing from $3.4 billion to $8.1 billion. Similarly, net income over the same period has jumped from $109 million to more than $1.5 billion.

Given its solid performance history, data-heavy business model, and steady growth, Nasdaq is an under-the-radar stock that most growth-oriented investors should consider.

Glossary

13F reportable assets: Assets that institutional investment managers must disclose quarterly to the Securities and Exchange Commission, showing their U.S. equity holdings.
Assets under management (AUM): The total market value of all investments managed by a fund or investment firm.
Quarterly average price: The average trading price of a security over a specific quarter, used for estimating transaction values.
Stake: The ownership interest or amount of shares held in a particular company by an investor or fund.
Top five holdings: The five largest investments in a fund's portfolio, ranked by market value.
SaaS (Software as a Service):A software delivery model where applications are accessed online via subscription rather than installed locally.
Market technology solutions: Technology products and services designed to support the operation and infrastructure of financial markets and exchanges.
Index licensing: The process of granting rights to use a financial index for products like ETFs or derivatives, often for a fee.
Transaction fees: Charges collected by exchanges or service providers for facilitating trades or financial transactions.
Corporate listing services: Services provided by exchanges to companies for listing their shares for public trading.
Market surveillance: Monitoring trading activity to detect and prevent market manipulation, fraud, or other abusive practices.
TTM: The 12-month period ending with the most recent quarterly report.

Jake Lerch has positions in Alphabet and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom and Nasdaq and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.