"Virtu Financial" Q2 2026 Earnings Call - Record Profitability and $3.4 Billion Capital Build Fuel Growth Phase

Operator: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, welcome to the Virtu Financial Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. After today’s prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, please press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Matthew Sandberg, Head of IR. Matthew, please go ahead.

Matthew Sandberg, Head of Investor Relations, Virtu Financial: Thank you. Good morning. Our second quarter 2026 results were released this morning are available on our website. With us today on this morning’s call, we have Aaron Simons, our Chief Executive Officer, Cindy Lee, our Chief Financial Officer, and Joseph Molluso, our Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer. We will begin with brief prepared remarks then take your questions. First, a few reminders. Today’s call may include forward-looking statements which represent Virtu’s current belief regarding future events and are therefore subject to risks, assumptions, and uncertainties which may be outside the company’s control. Please note that our actual results and financial conditions may differ materially from what is indicated in these forward-looking statements.

It is important to note that any forward-looking statements made on this call are based on information presently available to the company, we do not undertake to update or revise any forward-looking statements as new information becomes available. We refer you to disclaimers in our press release and encourage you to review the description of risk factors contained in our annual report, Form 10-K, and other public filings. During today’s call, in addition to GAAP measures, we may refer to certain non-GAAP measures, including adjusted net trading income, adjusted net income, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA margin. These non-GAAP measures should be considered as supplements to and not as superior to financial measures as reported in accordance with GAAP.

We direct listeners to consult the investor portion of our website, where you’ll find additional supplemental information referred to on this call, as well as a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the equivalent GAAP term in the earnings materials, with an explanation of why we deem this information to be meaningful, as well as how management uses these measures. With that, I’d like to turn the call over to Aaron.

Aaron Simons, Chief Executive Officer, Virtu Financial: Thank you, and good morning. A year ago, we announced our plan to pivot towards growth, including investing in infrastructure, acquiring talent, and growing our capital base. I’m happy to report substantial progress in that direction. We have made investments in power and compute and have begun to establish select partnerships via investment. Our talent acquisition efforts are proceeding as planned. We are reestablishing our reputation as a firm run by technologists and traders, and as a result, attrition rates are at multi-year lows. Following our recent opportunistic term loan increase, as well as 12 months of retained earnings, our total trading capital stands at $3.4 billion, up from $2 billion a year ago. We continue to find new ways to leverage our technology to productively deploy our growing pool of capital across all markets. We’ll continue accumulating trading capital for future growth through free cash flow.

We have provided additional perspective on the quarter in our detailed financial supplement and will be answering your questions shortly. First, Cindy Lee, our Chief Financial Officer, will review the financial results for the quarter.

Cindy Lee, Chief Financial Officer, Virtu Financial: Thanks, Aaron, good morning, everyone. For the second quarter of 2026, we generated Adjusted Net Trading Income, or ANTI, of $11.6 million per day, or a total of $718 million per day. Market Making reported ANTI of $9.4 million per day, while Execution Services reported an ANTI of $2.2 million per day. Both of our operating segments continue to benefit from favorable market conditions and strong execution by our teams. Our profitability this quarter was robust. We generated $437 million in Adjusted EBITDA, representing a 61% margin. Adjusted EPS was $1.82. Over the last 12 months, we have recorded ANTI per day of $10.4 million, Adjusted EBITDA of $1.7 billion and Adjusted EPS of $6.96. All of these numbers represent all-time highs for Virtu from a trailing 12-month perspective. On slide six of our supplemental materials, we provided a summary of our operating expenses.

Through June 30th, our cash compensation ratio is 23%, and our total compensation ratio is 28%. Again, these are the levels that we have stated would be appropriate in the near term. Turning to capital, our invested capital stands at $2.9 billion as of June 30th, while generating an average return of 106% over the past year. As Aaron mentioned, we subsidized term loan in early July, raising an incremental of $500 million in debt. Our trailing debt to EBITDA ratio is 1.5 times. We remain modestly leveraged. We will continue to grow our capital base organically and deploy capital where we see the greatest opportunities, all while maintaining our quarterly dividend of $0.24 per share. We will now take your questions. Thank you.

Operator: We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, please press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you’re muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Patrick Moley with Piper Sandler. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Patrick Moley, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I just had one on the trading capital build, invested capital up $270 million this quarter, you added the $500 million term loan. Just curious, how aggressive could you be from here with the trading capital build? Is this a one-time step up, or should we expect the growth to kind of continue at this pace? If you could just maybe speak to how quickly you could look to deploy the proceeds from the term loan, and when we should expect that to show up in the financials. Thanks.

Joseph Molluso, Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer, Virtu Financial: Sure. Hey, Patrick, it’s Joe. I’ll take that question, Aaron and Cindy will add anything I leave out. I think the answer is, we’ve guided previously that we’ve got a long-term goal of net trading income, and we need to sort of fit capital within that. That’ll come from two sources in the long term. One is the appropriate amount of leverage, and the other is organically, through free cash flow generation. In the debt markets and the leverage loan markets and the high-yield markets, you raise money when you can, not when you have to. We did that. We had a terrific opportunity to add on to our term loan at the current spread levels. The pricing was very tight. It was a great execution.

We were able to do it with a minimum of effort and at an attractive price, and our deal was very oversubscribed. We’re happy with it. The overall leverage level, I think in the near term here, maybe near to midterm, we’re set, and I think further accumulation will come from free cash flow generation, as Aaron mentioned in his opening remarks, right? That’ll be the primary means. In terms of deploying the capital, I think the returns speak for themselves. There’s active deployment and active opportunities given the markets and the continued levels of volumes of volatility and just opportunity that we’re seeing. In fact, we have been making use of some of our short-term liquidity to capture these opportunities. Now we sort of go back to normal with this level of capital. It is deployed.

We do have opportunities and near to medium term, this level of debt is sustainable, and we’re happy where we are.

Patrick Moley, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Okay, great. Thanks for that, Joe. As a follow-up, just on the cash compensation ratio, came in around 25%. It’s up a little bit on a year-over-year basis from closer to the 20% level. I know Cindy said that that 25%, I think, was what we should expect in the near term. Just as we think longer term and as we model the business out over the next couple of years, is there anything more episodic in the near term that’s going to keep it around that 25% level? Is that just sort of the new norm, and that’s how we should think about the level of comp going forward?

Maybe as a second part to that, just if we do get a down quarter, can you give us any sense of how much we should think about that comp ratio kind of flexing in a weaker environment? Thanks.

Joseph Molluso, Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer, Virtu Financial: Well, I think we’ve hired lots of real talent, again, as Aaron mentioned. We’re a little more tolerant of an investment period. Saying all that, we’ve guided to low to mid-20s compensation ratio on a cash basis, which I think for a business like ours is market and very reasonable. Sure, notionally, given the size of the P&L this year, the notional numbers look big, and it’s always been our practice to take a top-down approach early in the year and then sharpen our pencil later in the year. I think that guidance remains around. I’m looking more at the year-to-date ratio than the second quarter ratio because we do try to true up our accruals and get them right heading towards year-end. I look at the 23%. We guided low to mid-20s, and 23% is pretty low to mid-20s.

Patrick Moley, Analyst, Piper Sandler: All right. Thanks for that, Joe.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Dan Fannon with Jefferies. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Dan Fannon, Analyst, Jefferies: Thanks. Was hoping to just expand a bit upon just kind of the current environment. Obviously, you’ve talked about the capital that’s being deployed in the business, but maybe discuss the opportunity set as 2Q kind of progressed and as you sit here in July, maybe some of the asset classes or markets that are generating higher levels of return or were more interest or attractive in this current environment.

Joseph Molluso, Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer, Virtu Financial: Sure. Thanks, Dan. It’s Joe again. I think the growth markets that we used to refer to and call out have continued to grow, so crypto and options and block ETF. I think the emphasis, again, through hiring, through accessing markets, through the growth of capital, has been pretty global and pretty widespread. That is what we wanted and what Aaron’s referred to for the past year. Global equities, retail, and prop were standouts this quarter. Of course, the operating environment is one of the primary determinants of how we do, but it’s also notable, I think, that we’ve improved qualitatively. I think if you repeated this environment two years ago or more, then we wouldn’t have done as well. And I’d mentioned VES as well.

I mean, VES kind of reaching a level that’s been consistently above $2 million a day for three quarters in a row is something we don’t talk about a lot, but that consistency has been a contributing factor. That’s a very good business that’s coming into its own.

Dan Fannon, Analyst, Jefferies: Okay. Thank you. Then just as a follow-up, you mentioned the hiring, and can you just talk to where you think you are in that process? Is there a timeframe to think about in terms of getting to where you want to be in terms of the talent? Then you also mentioned low attrition. I don’t remember you guys ever referring to attrition, so any numbers or things you could put around maybe what’s happening today versus a year ago or any context would be helpful.

Aaron Simons, Chief Executive Officer, Virtu Financial: Hey, this is Aaron. I’ll answer that. We don’t have a headcount target in mind, at this point, it’s really more just we’re kind of hiring as fast as we can in all key areas like quants, researchers, traders, and especially engineers, developers. I think we’re just going to kind of continue on that pace until we feel like we don’t have too much work for the number of people that we have. It’s very hard for me to say because we always discover new things that we want to do. I would say at least for the next couple of years, you can expect us to be hiring pretty aggressively.

I think in terms of the attrition, it’s not that we were targeting, again, certain numbers, but it’s more just kind of trying to highlight that there’s been an overall culture shift, and I think it’s been recognized by the employee base and also just by the available talent pool and reflected in the interest that we’re seeing.

Dan Fannon, Analyst, Jefferies: Understood. Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Ken Worthington with J.P. Morgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Ken Worthington, Analyst, J.P. Morgan: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. You’re building capital, you’re hiring more trading talent. Can you maybe help us understand which of the asset classes and the products that you’re focusing these incremental resources towards? Is it completely broad-based, or are you really focusing it on some particular areas, geographies, or products or asset classes?

Aaron Simons, Chief Executive Officer, Virtu Financial: Sure. I’ll answer. I think Joe sort of said this in the previous question, but it’s really broad-based. Of course, it’s not going to be dollar-for-dollar equal everywhere. There are some that, in any given quarter, take more capital or less capital, and as we’ve kind of highlighted on other calls, the structure of the company, the flat structure, the way we make decisions, capital can move around opportunistically extremely quickly. Even if I had a plan, it would change tomorrow. There’s really a number of areas across the firm over the last year have seen sustained increases in deployable trading capital.

Ken Worthington, Analyst, J.P. Morgan: Okay. Can you talk about the jump in the brokerage and transaction costs? Maybe how did the mix change, versus the last maybe two quarters to drive the bigger jump in the brokerage and transaction costs this quarter?

Joseph Molluso, Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer, Virtu Financial: That’s going to really depend on business mix. It could depend on geographic mix. It could depend on timing of expenses. I wouldn’t really read too much into it. I’d look long term. I don’t know, Cindy, is there anything to add?

Cindy Lee, Chief Financial Officer, Virtu Financial: Yeah. No. It’s just as Joe was saying, it kind of really depends on the type of instrument. That’s why, in kind of our disclosure, we try to guide people to not focus on just one line item on the income statement.

Ken Worthington, Analyst, J.P. Morgan: Okay. Great. Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Michael Cyprys with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Michael Cyprys, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Just wanted to ask on perpetual futures. There’s obviously been a lot of discussion around scope for regulated perpetual futures of late. Just curious, as you think about that market potentially developing in the U.S., is that ultimately a new revenue opportunity for firms like Virtu, or is it simply shifting volume from existing products? Just curious how you think about that.

Aaron Simons, Chief Executive Officer, Virtu Financial: Sure. Thanks for the question. I don’t think we think we can predict where volumes are going to go. It does seem historically that when there’s been new ways to trade things and new sources of fragmentation, that generally volumes go up, and certainly in the short term, it seems like that has happened, and exactly where it shakes out, we don’t know. Our attitude is always just be connected to everything that trades electronically everywhere we can and stand ready to be able to price and shift liquidity around in the market. It’s been great for us so far, and we’re going to continue to be there as it grows.

Michael Cyprys, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Also just curious to get your perspectives on the appeal that you see for customers with perpetual futures. Just curious how much interest appetite you see from customers for that sort of product. What is it that appeals in your view that you think is most compelling? Overseas, it seems like it’s the high leverage and the 24/7 access. As that comes to the U.S., curious what you think might appeal, what might be the appetite from institutions, and what might be the scope for the perpetual product to evolve over time, maybe to address some of the perceived shortcomings in some pockets. Thank you.

Joseph Molluso, Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer, Virtu Financial: When you say a customer appeal, are you talking retail? I wasn’t following.

Michael Cyprys, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: All of the above.

Joseph Molluso, Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer, Virtu Financial: All of the above.

Michael Cyprys, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Market participants.

Joseph Molluso, Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer, Virtu Financial: Sure. Virtu Execution Services has institutional customers. There’s not a big demand right now. I think as you know, we don’t have direct retail customers. We’re a wholesaler for a number of hundreds of retail brokers. Mike, I think I’d refer to Aaron’s previous answer. We will be there to trade these products as they evolve. I don’t actually recognize them. We don’t think of them as a new asset class. It is the evolution of lots of existing asset classes. If there are novel ways that customers want to trade and hedge and use these products, we will be there, as Aaron said, to price them and to trade them. Right? We generally don’t take a view as to if something is a better product or a worse product or something that we’d like to see more or less of.

We try to be agnostic and just trade it as it becomes tradable and liquid and something that we can offer our services around.

Michael Cyprys, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Okay, thanks.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. This concludes today’s call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.