What is a cash flow waterfall?

A cash flow waterfall is a bar chart that walks from operating cash flow through capital expenditure to free cash flow, then shows how the remaining cash is allocated — acquisitions, buybacks, dividends, debt, and other financing — ending at the net change in cash. Each step is colour-coded: green bars add to the running total, red bars subtract.

How does Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, Intercontinental Exchange generated $5.02B of operating cash flow and $4.56B of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 90.8% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) return via buybacks and dividends?

The waterfall shows buybacks (share repurchases) and dividends paid as separate steps in the financing section. Together these represent Intercontinental Exchange's shareholder returns for TTM through Q1 2026. You can compare these against free cash flow to assess the capital-return payout ratio.

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$5.02B

Capex

-$464M

Free Cash Flow

$4.56B

FCF Margin

+90.8%

Cash flow waterfall for Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: $4.56B

Note: Other Investing is large — driven mainly by acquisitions and investment activity.

Cash flow breakdown for Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$5.02B	$5.02B
Capital Expenditure	-$464M	$4.56B
Free Cash Flow	$4.56B	$4.56B
Other Investing	-$3.05B	$1.51B
Share Buybacks	-$1.7B	-$193M
Dividends Paid	-$1.12B	-$1.32B
Net Debt Change	-$1.18B	-$2.5B
Other Financing	$36.3B	$33.8B
Forex Effect	$9.51B	$43.3B
Net Cash Increase	$43.3B	$43.3B

Operating Cash Flow$5.02B
Capital Expenditure-$464M
Free Cash Flow$4.56B
Other Investing-$3.05B
Share Buybacks-$1.7B
Dividends Paid-$1.12B
Net Debt Change-$1.18B
Other Financing$36.3B
Forex Effect$9.51B
Net Cash Increase$43.3B

Want to see what drove the FCF change?Free Cash Flow Bridge

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