a nearly empty trading floor is seen as preparations are made for the return to trading at the new york stock exchange nyse in new york us may 22 2020 reutersbrendan mcdermid april 28 reuters  new york stock exchangeowner intercontinental exchange inc icen reported firstquarter profit that beat wall street estimates on thursday boosted by strength in its mortgage technology business and continued market volatility excluding onetime items like ma costs ice earned 134 per share in the quarter 4 cents above analysts average estimate according to ibes data from refinitiv ices mortgage servicing business benefited from its 11billion acquisition last year of mortgage tech firm ellie mae ice has been investing in the business since 2016 we see just like we saw in the commodities markets two decades ago just like weve seen in the fixed income markets that the mortgage space is an industry thats going through a significant analog to digital transition ice president ben jackson said on a call with analysts revenue in the segment surged 672 from a year earlier to 355 million which the company said was just scratching the surface of what it sees as a 4 billion opportunity in the mortgage loan origination and processing space alone the exchange clearinghouse and data services provider also benefited from the pandemicinduced market turmoil which continued its momentum into the first quarter as a new cohort of retail traders entered the market ices exchange segment its biggest business brought in 161 billion in revenue up marginally from last year in the current quarter ice said it sold its 14 stake in cryptocurrency exchange coinbase coino for more than 12 billion coinbase debuted on nyse competitor nasdaq inc ndaqo earlier this month with an initial market capitalization larger than ices read more ices own cryptocurrency exchange subsidiary bakkt is expected to complete its merger with blankcheck firm vpc impact acquisition holdings viho at the end of this quarter giving it a 21 billion enterprise value reporting by niket nishant in bengaluru editing by vinay dwivedi