CME GROUP INC. (CME)

CME Group operates derivatives exchanges and one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, enabling clients to trade futures, options, cash and over-the-counter products, optimize portfolios and analyze data. It also provides primary price discovery and referential pricing through real-time, historical and derived market data, along with research and analytics tools. Its principal executive offices are at 20 South Wacker Drive, Chicago, Illinois.

The business spans several areas. Its derivatives exchanges (CME, CBOT, NYMEX and COMEX) list benchmark products in interest rates (SOFR, U.S. Treasury, Federal Funds), equity indices (E-mini S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, Russell 2000), foreign exchange, agricultural commodities, energy, metals and cryptocurrencies. They trade mainly on the CME Globex electronic platform, with open outcry for SOFR options and privately negotiated transactions. Derivatives clearing, through the CME clearing house and CME ClearPort, provides clearing and settlement for futures, options, swaps and OTC derivatives, acting as buyer to every seller and seller to every buyer. In December 2025 the subsidiary CME Securities Clearing received SEC approval to become a securities clearing agency, with a launch expected later in 2026. The cash markets business comprises BrokerTec (fixed income and repo, including U.S. Treasuries and European government bonds) and EBS (spot FX and spot precious metals). Data Services offers proprietary and third-party market data, analytics, and benchmarks such as CME Term SOFR, administered by CME Benchmark Administration Limited. In 2025, futures and options average daily volume was a record 28.1 million contracts, and BrokerTec and EBS generated $283.7 million of clearing and transaction fees.

Customers include professional traders, financial institutions, institutional and individual investors, major corporations, manufacturers, producers, governments and central banks, plus brokers and retail traders. Many are exchange members, who accounted for 85% of 2025 contract volume. About 31% of electronic futures and options volume and about 53% of market data revenue came from outside the U.S. The company has a sales presence in over 10 countries, including a new Dubai office. It reaches retail customers through channel partners and a joint venture with FanDuel that launched a prediction markets app in December 2025. One clearing firm represented 12% of clearing and transaction fees revenue in 2025.

Operationally, CME Group is in a 10-year partnership with Google Cloud, moving clearing and market data applications to the cloud. Google Cloud is also developing a private cloud region and co-location facility in Aurora, Illinois, to host its futures and options markets. Equity index products are listed under licenses from S&P Dow Jones Indices (a joint venture with S&P Global), Dow Jones, Nasdaq and FTSE Russell, many of them exclusive and carrying revenue-share payments. The company holds patents, trademarks and copyrights. It describes its industry as highly competitive, with competition based on liquidity, product diversity, clearing efficiency, technology and cost.