Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (CBOE) Business Profile

What it does

Cboe Global Markets operates exchanges and other financial-market infrastructure. Its venues bring together buyers and sellers of options, stocks, futures and foreign exchange. It also clears trades, supplies market data and licenses indices. Founded in 1973, Cboe is headquartered in Chicago and led by Chief Executive Officer and President Craig S. Donohue.

Options give investors a way to manage or take exposure to changes in an underlying asset or index. Cboe offers options on individual stocks and exchange-traded funds, as well as products tied to market indices. Its SPX options track the S&P 500 Index, while its VIX options and futures are based on a measure of expected stock-market volatility. Customers include asset managers, banks, brokers, hedge funds, professional traders and individual investors.

Cboe operates electronic exchanges as well as a Chicago options market that combines electronic trading with a trading floor. Its clearing businesses stand between parties to certain trades and handle post-trade obligations. Its Data Vantage business sells data, connectivity, indices and analytics to market participants.

Cboe serves customers across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. In 2026, it also received approval to offer contracts tied to company performance metrics and said it anticipated launching them in November.

How it makes money

Cboe earns fees when customers trade or clear transactions, connect to its venues, use its data and license its indices. Pricing differs by market and product: some participants pay transaction fees, while others receive rebates for providing or taking liquidity. In proprietary options and futures, market participants generally pay fees, subject to exceptions.

In FY2025, transaction and clearing fees were $3.6 billion; in Q3 2026, net revenue was $712 million. The first figure is a revenue category, while the second is a company-wide total after cost of revenues.

The Options segment includes index options, stock and fund options, data licensing and access services. FY2025 Options revenue was $2.4 billion. North American Equities includes electronic stock exchanges, block trading, listings and related data and access services; its FY2025 revenue was $1.7 billion. The other segments cover European and Asia Pacific trading and clearing, futures, and institutional foreign exchange.

Cboe also groups its business into derivatives markets, cash and spot markets, and Data Vantage. These groupings cut across segments rather than representing additional businesses to add to segment revenue. Data Vantage sells access and capacity, proprietary market data, indices and analytics; FY2025 revenue was $635.5 million. Data subscriptions, licensing agreements and connectivity services provide sources of recurring fees, while trading and clearing fees vary with activity.

Cboe distributes its proprietary indices through subscriptions and licenses them for third-party products. It also receives a share of fees from consolidated U.S. market-data plans, using allocation formulas that can reflect trading and quoting activity.

Customers and how it sells

Cboe serves financial institutions, trading platforms, institutional and individual investors, and professional traders. Many customers access its U.S. exchanges through registered broker-dealers that hold trading permits or exchange memberships. Futures customers include banks, hedge funds, asset managers and proprietary trading firms; institutional foreign-exchange customers also include corporates. One major customer accounted for 10.0% of FY2025 revenue.

In Europe, equities customers include regulated brokerage and proprietary trading firms, while clearing members include banks and brokerage firms. Cboe distributes data directly, through vendor partners and through its cloud data service. Customers can also license indices for use in their own products.

Cboe’s markets span North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Cboe Canada operates a securities exchange, while Cboe Europe operates equities markets and Cboe Clear Europe provides clearing. Cboe completed the sale of its Australian business to TMX Group on July 31, 2026. Cboe had initiated a sales process for Cboe Canada, which remained in its 2026 guidance while the company awaited more clarity on a closing timeline.

For its planned company performance-metric contracts, Cboe named Robinhood as a launch partner and said Interactive Brokers would also support client access at launch.

Suppliers and costs

Cboe licenses indices from outside providers for products traded on its markets. Its exclusive licensing agreement with S&P Dow Jones Indices runs through 2051. Cboe expects higher royalty terms beginning in 2027 and said later adjustments under the extended agreement would be smaller than the 2027 reset.

The company develops, owns and operates its Cboe Titanium trading platform in-house and uses readily available hardware. It also uses third parties for some regulatory functions. Cboe’s exchanges retain responsibility for regulating their members and markets even where outside organizations perform functions on their behalf.

Liquidity payments are a cost of revenue and generally move with trading volumes. Cboe pays rebates to participants under different pricing models across its markets. It also incurs compensation, technology, regulatory and other operating expenses. Cboe expects to continue providing transition support and incurring some related expense for up to 12 months after the Australian sale, subject to operational readiness.

Cboe said demand related to artificial intelligence was raising hardware and software prices across capital and operating expenses, and it did not expect that pressure to abate in the near future.

Competitive position

Cboe competes on execution price and speed, platform functionality, reliability, liquidity and product range. Its multi-listed stock and fund options trade on other exchanges, which use fees and rebates to attract orders. Its U.S. equities venues also compete with exchanges, alternative trading systems and brokers that execute orders away from exchanges.

In the prospective market for company performance-metric binary contracts, Cboe identified MEMX, NYSE and Nasdaq as exchanges that had submitted similar filings. Cboe expects this market to become multi-listed over time. Its proprietary products also face competition from other derivatives, including products offering similar exposure to SPX options, and from event prediction markets.

Our reading: Exclusive index-product rights are a substantial competitive protection because competitors cannot offer the same SPX options on their venues. The extension through 2051 preserves those rights, although other products can offer similar exposure. Our reading: Liquidity and distribution can reinforce Cboe’s position, since customers value opportunities to trade and brokers connect investors to its markets; those benefits face pressure where products are multi-listed and order flow can move between venues.

Data Vantage competes with exchanges, technology companies, data providers and software vendors. Our reading: Proprietary trading data and indices support differentiation, but competing distribution channels and similar data products limit their protection.

Growth opportunities

Cboe’s growth plans include broadening access to its options markets, expanding data and connectivity services, and developing new products and clearing capabilities. In Q3 2026, index options average daily volume rose 24% year over year, while Data Vantage net revenue increased 13% year over year.

Cboe launched extended sessions in October 2026 for options on 24 single stocks and 5 ETFs. It said the sessions would enable more international customers to trade U.S. options during their local hours. The company also said it was ready to extend cash-equities trading to 23 by 5 in December, pending industry readiness, and was exploring around-the-clock trading over time.

Cboe launched binary options on the Mini S&P 500 Index in June 2026. It subsequently received approval for company performance-metric event contracts and anticipated a November launch, subject to clearing-member, broker and market-maker readiness. Cboe Clear U.S. received temporary SEC registration to clear securities and approval to clear a broader range of margined futures.

The company continues to expand Data Vantage datasets, analytics and index products. For 2026, Cboe expects total organic net revenue growth in the high teens and Data Vantage organic net revenue growth in the mid-teens. Its organic guidance excludes the effect of the Australian sale.

Structural risks

• Exclusive rights and royalties: Losing the right to exclusively list and trade certain index options and futures could materially affect financial performance. Cboe’s updated S&P royalty terms begin in 2027.

• Market activity: Trading and clearing volumes and demand for Cboe’s services are affected by economic, political and market conditions. Changes in trading volumes or the mix of products traded can affect results.

• Competition and customers: Exchanges compete for orders through fees, rebates and market models. Loss of key customers or a significant reduction in their trading or clearing volumes is a risk.

• Technology and security: Cboe must protect its systems and communications networks from breaches and accommodate changes in transaction traffic without system failure or degraded performance. It also depends on third parties for parts of its operations.

• Clearing and regulation: Clearing exposes Cboe to credit, liquidity, market, counterparty and default risks. Its exchanges and clearinghouses must also meet regulatory obligations, which can change across the jurisdictions where they operate.

Bottom line

Our reading

Cboe combines trading venues with clearing, data and index licensing, so it earns both activity-sensitive fees and fees from ongoing access and data relationships (item1). Our reading: Exclusive SPX rights are central to its competitive position, while multi-listed markets, clearing obligations and technology costs create distinct exposures (item1; item1a; call_prepared). New event contracts and extended hours add opportunities, but their adoption remains to be established (call_prepared; call_qa).