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S&P Global’s largest businesses are Market Intelligence and Ratings. Investment managers, banks and companies pay Market Intelligence for tools such as Capital IQ to research investments, value assets and assess credit risk. Most of that business’s revenue comes from subscriptions that give customers continuing access to data, analytics and software.
Ratings assesses whether borrowers can and will repay their debts. Debt issuers pay for ratings on new borrowing and for ongoing monitoring and relationship-based services. This business depends heavily on how much rated debt companies and governments issue, rather than just on recurring customer contracts.
The company also earns fees when fund providers and exchanges use its investment indexes; much of this income moves with assets in index-based funds and derivatives trading volumes. Energy sells commodity-price assessments and market information, mainly by subscription, and licenses price data to exchanges. Mobility sells automotive forecasts, vehicle-history information and other data to manufacturers, dealers, lenders and insurers. S&P Global has announced a plan to spin off Mobility as a separate listed company, subject to approvals.
Delivering these products depends on continued access to outside data, including critical datasets with few ready substitutes, and significant use of Amazon Web Services for computing. Credit-rating and benchmark rules govern parts of the business, while privacy and cross-border data rules can restrict what information it collects and distributes.
The risk section is the longest, dullest part of the filing. This keeps only what can really hurt you: where it hits, how hard, when it plays out.
Every company claims an edge. Each one is checked against hard numbers like margins and returns: which hold, and which line gives way first.
S&P Global depends on debt issuance, financial-data subscriptions and index-linked assets and trading, with Bloomberg and LSEG also important rivals to watch in Market Intelligence.
Moody’s and S&P Global both depend on debt issuers paying for credit ratings and customers subscribing to credit-risk analytics, while competing for that business. Moody’s ratings business is worth watching for signs of demand for ratings on new debt, which generates transaction fees for S&P Global.
MSCI competes with S&P Global for investors’ spending on investment indexes, portfolio analytics and institutional investment data. Demand for MSCI’s tools for building portfolios and measuring risk offers a read on the customer needs that S&P Global’s index and analytics businesses also serve.
FactSet competes directly with S&P Global Market Intelligence for financial professionals’ subscriptions to workstations, investment data and portfolio analytics. FactSet’s subscription revenue is a useful signal of spending on the data and daily investment tools that also underpin S&P Global’s Capital IQ platforms.
Morningstar competes with S&P Global for customers buying investment data and research, credit ratings and index benchmarks. Its subscriptions for research, data and platforms offer a window into the investment-research budgets that also matter to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
CME Group runs markets where customers trade S&P equity-index derivatives and clears those trades, sharing the profits with S&P Dow Jones Indices under a licensing agreement. Watch trading and clearing in those products: the agreement generated $193 million of revenue for S&P Dow Jones Indices in 2025.
Cboe Global Markets earns transaction fees from customers trading S&P 500 Index options, or SPX options, and pays to license S&P indexes, tying that activity to S&P Global’s index royalties. SPX trading volume is the key line to watch because these options contribute substantially to Cboe’s trading volumes and transaction-fee revenue.
Intercontinental Exchange competes for customers of S&P Global Market Intelligence by selling fixed-income pricing, data and analytics that overlap with S&P Global’s valuation and market-data services.
Nasdaq competes with S&P Global for customers buying index benchmarks, investment data and technology for financial workflows. Its sales of market information to financial firms, investors and data distributors offer a read on demand for data that also matters to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
BlackRock pays to use S&P indexes in investment funds, making it a customer of S&P Global, but also sells investment-analysis tools through Aladdin that compete with S&P Global’s analytics.
MSCI, Inc. earningsMSCI
MSCI’s report will show whether investment firms still spend on portfolio and risk tools that compete with S&P Global’s Indices and Market Intelligence businesses.
Look at demand or revenue for MSCI’s portfolio and risk tools. Stronger demand would show investment firms still pay for this kind of analysis, supporting budgets available to S&P Global’s competing businesses; weaker demand would suggest customers are tightening that spending and competition for their budgets is harder.
CME Group Inc. earningsCME
CME Group’s report will show whether trading in S&P equity-index derivatives is active, which supports licensing revenue for S&P Dow Jones Indices.
Look at trading volume and related clearing activity in CME’s S&P equity-index derivatives. More activity brings CME more trading and clearing fees and supports S&P Dow Jones Indices’ revenue under their licensing arrangement; weaker activity puts that revenue under pressure, separately from S&P Global’s subscription businesses.
Moody's Corporation earningsMCO
Moody’s report will show demand for ratings on new debt, the same issuer-paid work that generates transaction fees for S&P Global Ratings.
Look at Moody’s new-debt rating activity alongside transaction revenue. Both strengthening would show issuers are paying to rate more new debt, enlarging the pool of work available to S&P Global Ratings; both weakening would mean fewer such opportunities, even though S&P Global could still win a larger share.
EIA Crude Oil Stocks Change (Oct/16)
For S&P Global Energy, weekly U.S. crude oil and gasoline stock levels show how tight fuel supplies are, and the price and trading moves they bring can change demand for its energy-market information and price data and related royalties.
If stocks are building, supply is loosening and prices may face downward pressure, potentially dampening demand for Energy’s market information and price data and trading-linked royalties; if stocks are drawing down, tighter supply may lift prices and trading, potentially supporting those offerings and royalties.
S&P Global Inc. earningsThis company
S&P Global’s report will show whether data subscriptions and debt ratings are both growing, or whether growth rests mainly on its steadier subscription revenue.
Compare Market Intelligence subscription revenue with Ratings transaction revenue from new debt issuance. Growth in both would show customers continue paying for data while more issuers pay to rate new debt; subscription growth alongside weaker transaction revenue would show data demand holding up while debt issuance activity lags.
