stockrowWhat it does
CME Group is a Chicago-headquartered financial-markets operator founded on 2007-07-12. Terrence A. Duffy is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
It runs exchanges where customers trade futures and options: standardized contracts used to hedge, speculate on or allocate capital around moves in interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, agricultural commodities, energy, metals and cryptocurrencies. Its derivatives exchanges are CME, CBOT, NYMEX and COMEX. It also runs BrokerTec for cash fixed-income and repo trading, and EBS for spot and over-the-counter foreign-exchange trading.
Most trading happens electronically through CME Globex, which operates central-limit-order-book markets. CME Direct provides brokers and customers tools to arrange, execute, record and manage trades, including for privately negotiated transactions. The company also sells real-time, historical and derived market data, benchmark rates and analytics.
A central part of the model is clearing. CME’s clearing house stands between the buyer and seller of each cleared trade: it becomes buyer to every seller and seller to every buyer. It marks positions to market at least twice each business day for most cleared markets and collects or pays variation margin. This structure is intended to limit counterparty credit risk and lets participants offset positions with different counterparties.
Its customers include professional traders, financial institutions, institutional and individual investors, corporations, manufacturers, producers, governments and central banks.
How it makes money
CME Group primarily earns clearing and transaction fees when customers trade or clear contracts. Fees include electronic-trading fees, charges on privately negotiated transactions and other volume-related charges. The company generally charges per contract or by notional value, so volume is the main driver. Revenue also changes with fee schedules, product mix, execution venue and the mix of member and non-member trading; members generally pay lower fees.
Clearing and transaction fees were $5.3 billion in FY2025, representing 81.0% of revenue. MarketData revenue was $803.1 million, or 12.3% of revenue, from subscribers receiving real-time, delayed, end-of-day and historical quotations and other information directly or through distributors. The remaining revenue includes connectivity, co-location, collateral-management, equity-subscription and order-routing fees.
For BrokerTec and EBS cash markets, the company matches buyers and sellers and generally charges a transaction fee based on volume or notional value. BrokerTec Americas also acts as a fully matched counterparty for certain transactions to facilitate anonymity and clearing access. BrokerTec and EBS generated $283.7 million of clearing and transaction fees in 2025.
FY2025 clearing and transaction fees: $5.3 billion; Q3 2026 revenue: $1.7 billion.
Management said on the call that Q3 2026 market-data revenue was $243 million, with demand from professional subscribers, retail and simulated-trading platforms, data feeds, Term SOFR and pricing and policy changes. It also said October pricing changes were expected to affect annualized clearing and transaction fees by somewhere in the range of half to 1%. Most operating expenses do not vary directly with contract volume, although licensing and other agreements can vary with some equity, energy and swap volumes.
| Product or service | Revenue, FY2025 | Share | Change on the year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clearing and Transaction Fees | $5.3 billion | 81.0% | 5.87% |
| MarketData | $803.1 million | 12.3% | 13.1% |
| OtherRevenue | $436.4 million | 6.69% | 1.09% |
Customers and how it sells
CME Group serves a mix of professional traders, banks and other financial institutions, institutional and individual investors, corporations, manufacturers, commodity producers, governments and central banks. Customers may access markets directly when eligible, through exchange membership or through clearing firms and brokers. In 2025, 85% of contract volume came from trades by exchange members.
The company distributes its products through internal and external sales channels, vendor-provided and custom-built systems connected to CME Globex, independent software vendors, CME Direct, and third-party market-data distributors. BrokerTec and EBS are integrated with major independent software vendors for order entry, staging, clearing and settlement workflows.
The business has global customer access. In 2025, approximately 31% of electronic futures and options volume came from transactions reported outside the United States, and approximately 53% of market-data revenue was derived outside the United States. CME Group has a sales presence in over 10 countries and opened a Dubai office. Its workforce was 3,875 at December 31, 2025, with approximately 2,230 employees in the United States and approximately 1,645 in non-U.S. locations.
One clearing firm represented 12% of clearing and transaction-fee revenue in 2025. The company states that if a clearing firm withdraws, customer trading activity has historically likely transferred to one or more other clearing firms. Management said on the call that 94% of volume through the first half of 2026 originated from institutional customers.
Suppliers and costs
CME Group relies on technology, telecommunications, independent software vendors, market-data distributors, clearing firms, index licensors and cloud infrastructure rather than manufacturing inputs. It uses license agreements for equity-index products and pays applicable third parties a revenue share under those agreements. Its futures and options on the S&P 500 Index are covered by an ownership-linked exclusive license with S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, subject to the agreement’s terms.
Google Cloud is a technology partner under a 10-year strategic partnership begun in 2021. The company expects to use a Google Cloud private cloud region and co-location facility in Aurora, Illinois for its futures and options markets. Management said on the call that it expects to begin migrating markets to the cloud in late 2027.
Compensation and benefits are its largest expense category, covering wages, bonuses, stock-based compensation, benefits and employer taxes. Expense changes reflect workforce size and composition, labor-market wages, taxes, benefit costs, bonus plans and equity compensation. Much of the cost base does not move directly with trading volume, while licensing and other fees can vary with specified product volumes.
- Revenue$6.5B
- Selling, general and administrative−$1.7B
- Other operating costs−$579.4M
- Operating income$4.2B
Competitive position
CME Group competes globally in trading, clearing, settlement, cash markets and data services. Named derivatives-exchange competitors include Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE), Cboe Global Markets, Euronext N.V., Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, Deutsche Börse AG and FMX Futures Exchange. ICE, LCH Group, OCC, Cboe Clear, DTCC, HKEX, Japan Securities Clearing Corporation, LME Clear and Eurex Clearing compete in derivatives clearing. FICC, a DTCC subsidiary, is identified as the primary player in U.S. Treasury clearing, where ICE Clear Credit also offers a Treasury-clearing service.
The company also faces fragmented competition in foreign exchange and fixed income from electronic communication networks, bank-owned and single-dealer platforms, request-for-quote services, voice brokers and venues tied to data platforms. Alternative venues can compete on price, including at rates below EBS and BrokerTec. Data vendors, technology companies and front-end software providers can provide alternatives to direct exchange data feeds.
CME Group identifies liquidity, clearing and settlement quality, capital and margin efficiencies, product breadth, execution and distribution, technology, reliability and transaction costs as competitive factors.
Our reading: Deep liquidity and the clearing house are meaningful moat sources because they support execution and offsetting, but liquidity can move when competing venues offer lower prices or alternative products [item1; item7].
Our reading: Exclusive index licenses and broad distribution support product differentiation, although the company cannot guarantee exclusivity or renewals [item1].
Our reading: Capital and margin efficiencies reinforce the integrated trading-and-clearing model, while clearing, cash-market and data competitors remain substantial [item1].
| Competitor | Where they compete | Threat (our reading) |
|---|---|---|
| Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE) | derivatives exchanges, clearing and energy products | High |
| Cboe Global Markets | derivatives exchanges and clearing | Medium |
| Euronext N.V. | global derivatives exchange trading | Medium |
| Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) | exchange trading and derivatives clearing | Medium |
| Deutsche Börse AG | global derivatives exchange trading | Medium |
| FMX Futures Exchange | new entrant in futures trading | Medium |
| LCH Group | derivatives clearing services | High |
| OCC | derivatives clearing and cross-margining | Medium |
Growth opportunities
CME Group’s growth strategy is to expand futures and options globally, diversify revenue and increase customer capital and operational efficiencies. It is adding products across its core asset classes, including smaller contract sizes, options, event contracts, over-the-counter alternatives, products with shorter or more specific time periods, and products related to energy transition markets. The company also seeks to expand sales coverage, channel partnerships, market-data distribution and retail participation.
In 2025, futures and options average daily volume was 28.1 million contracts. Recently launched micro products recorded 32% average-daily-volume growth and OTC alternative products grew 11%. The company reported 6% volume growth during European trading hours and 13% during Asia-Pacific trading hours in 2025 versus 2024.
Management said on the call that Q3 2026 average daily volume was 29.4 million contracts, up 16% year over year, while international average daily volume was 9 million contracts, up 22%. It said open interest reached 128 million contracts at quarter end. Management also said the company launched single-stock futures and e-nano equity-index futures during the quarter, expanded 24/7 trading for one-ounce gold and 100-ounce silver contracts, and was on track for a December 7 launch of CME Securities Clearing.
The company expects securities clearing to help participants meet U.S. Treasury clearing requirements. It is also awaiting regulatory review for compute futures using the Silicon Data Index; management said potential participants include neocloud providers, data-center operators, banks, funds, proprietary traders and chip providers.
- $4.7BFY2021
- $5.0BFY2022
- $5.6BFY2023
- $6.1BFY2024
- $6.5BFY2025
Structural risks
-
Volume and market conditions. Revenue is substantially derived from fees on transactions executed and cleared in CME Group markets. Trading volume can be affected by economic, political and geopolitical conditions, volatility, monetary policy, customer risk appetite, assets under management, commodity supply and demand, weather and catastrophes.
-
Competition and pricing. Competitors can offer preferred products, lower prices, different technology, broader networks or alternative risk-transfer instruments. Alternative cash-market venues may offer services at significantly lower rates than EBS and BrokerTec.
-
Technology, resilience and cyber risk. A failure in trading, clearing, data or network systems could cause service disruption, execution delays, failed settlements, inaccurate trade processing, financial losses, customer claims, regulatory sanctions or customer losses.
-
Regulation and market structure. CME Group is extensively regulated in the United States, United Kingdom and European Union. Changes in clearing, digital-asset, capital, transaction-tax, user-fee, Treasury-market or other rules can raise costs, change customer activity or alter the competitive landscape.
-
Clearing and counterparty exposure. The clearing house guarantees trades and is responsible for covering replacement cost in specified physical-delivery failures. The business also depends on clearing members; one firm represented 12% of 2025 clearing and transaction-fee revenue.
-
Data, licensing and alliances. Market-data usage can decline with customer conditions or technological change, while unauthorized use and artificial-intelligence-related misuse can affect licensing. Index licenses may not retain exclusivity or renew on equally favorable terms, and joint ventures can create development, influence and partner-conflict risks.
Bottom line
Our reading
Our reading: CME Group is an infrastructure business built around trading venues, a central clearing house and market data, with most revenue tied to transaction activity and a cost base that is largely not volume-linked [item1; item7]. Its integrated clearing function, liquid benchmark markets, index licenses and global distribution underpin the model, while competition, regulatory change and technology reliability can affect volumes, pricing and market structure [item1; item1a]. Management’s reported expansion into securities clearing, new contracts and cloud infrastructure adds execution requirements alongside the core franchise [call_prepared; call_qa].