CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) reported third-quarter financial results on Wednesday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.
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Summary
CME Group reported a record third quarter with $1.7 billion in revenue, a 13% increase year-over-year, and adjusted operating income of $1.2 billion.
The company achieved a record average daily volume of 29.4 million contracts, with double-digit growth across all six asset classes.
CME Group plans to launch CME Securities Clearing in December, aligned with the SEC’s Treasury clearing mandate, highlighting its focus on innovation while maintaining market integrity.
The company set a record for international business, with average daily volume up 22%, driven by strong growth in energy, agricultural, and equity index products.
Future strategic initiatives include expanding product offerings, enhancing technology infrastructure in partnership with Google Cloud, and maintaining robust client engagement.
Management emphasized the importance of market integrity and risk management, expressing confidence in handling systemic risk concerns.
The company returned nearly $1 billion to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases, reflecting a strong capital return strategy.
Concerns about the approval and launch of new products, such as compute futures and 24/7 trading in certain asset classes, were discussed, with management highlighting regulatory and client engagement efforts.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Welcome to the CME Group third quarter 2026 earnings call. At this time, I would like to inform all participants that your lines have been placed on a listen-only mode until the question-and-answer session of today’s conference. I will now turn the call over to Adam Minick. Please go ahead.
Adam Minick (Investor Relations)
Good morning and I hope you’re all doing well today. Earlier this morning we released our earnings commentary, which provides extensive details on the third quarter 2026 which we will be discussing on this call. I’ll start with the safe harbor language and then I’ll turn it over to Terry. Statements made on this call and in the other reference documents on our website that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance.
They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or implied in any statement. Detailed information about factors that may affect our performance can be found in the filings with the SEC which are on our website. Lastly, in the earnings release you will see a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP measures following the financial statements.
With that I’ll turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO Terry Duffy.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Adam, and thank you all for joining us this morning. I’ll make a few comments about our exceptional third quarter performance before turning it over to Lynn to provide an overview of our financial results. In addition to Lynn, we have other members of our management team present to answer questions after the prepared remarks. Against the backdrop of shifting central bank policies, geopolitical uncertainty and persistent market volatility, global participants continue to turn to CME Group in record numbers. The third quarter average daily volume of 29.4 million contracts was the highest third quarter average daily volume in CME Group’s history and increased 16% compared to the same period last year. This strong growth was broad-based as we achieved double-digit year-over-year volume growth in all six asset classes.
Our financial and commodity products volume each grew by 16%. Beyond the strong volume growth, the underlying health of the business is perhaps best reflected in the strength of our open interest and the significant capital efficiencies we provide to our customers. Quarter-end open interest reached 128 million contracts and today it’s over 133, the highest open interest at the end of September in our history. As I said, this open interest continues to grow in October. We also set a record for number of large open interest holders in both our interest rates and foreign exchange complexes in September.
Additionally, we delivered record levels of capital efficiency in the third quarter, saving our customers an average of over $100 billion a day in margin savings. This was a record third quarter for our international business as well, where average daily volume reached 9 million contracts, up 22% versus last year’s. This was led by 6.5 million average daily volume from EMEA, which was up 20%, and 2.1 million contracts per day from APAC, up 28%. The record international volume was driven by growth in energy products, up 40%, agricultural products were up 28% and equity index products were up 24%.
To support our customers, product innovation remains central to our strategy. During the quarter, we launched several new products including Single Stock Futures and nano equity index futures. We also expanded 24/7 trading to both our 1 oz. gold and 100 oz. silver contracts, building on the strong traction of our 24/7 cryptocurrency products launched earlier this year. Looking ahead, we are on track for our December 7th launch of CME Securities Clearing in advance of the SEC’s Treasury clearing mandate.
Innovation will continue to be a key driver of our performance and our ability to serve our clients effectively. However, true innovation must always be anchored in market integrity, financial safeguards and client protection. Innovation without real risk management isn’t progress. It has the potential to create systemic risk. CME Group remains committed to ensuring market integrity and will never sacrifice core protections in the name of innovation.
Instead, we continue to launch innovative products while preserving the safety and soundness of our marketplace. Technology innovation must also be responsive to client needs. As part of our ongoing cloud migration with Google Cloud, we opened the Dallas disaster recovery facility for client testing in June. The performance of that infrastructure has been positive, with latency and consistency as good or better than our on-premises offering. The primary Chicago region continues to progress to plan and we expect to begin this cloud migration of our markets in late 2027.
Given this timeline and the positive testing to date, we have determined that in the interim, relocation of our livestock markets to Dallas is no longer necessary. Next-generation market participants require premier technology optionality. CME Group is uniquely positioned as the only global exchange offering clients the dual advantage of Google Cloud managed services alongside ultra-low latency colocation. It’s clear that market participants continue to turn to CME Group to navigate a complex and rapidly evolving global economy. I’m incredibly proud of what we achieved this quarter and I’m highly confident in the opportunities ahead of us. With that, I will hand the call over to Lynn to discuss our financial performance in more detail.
Lynne Cook Fitzpatrick (President and Chief Financial Officer)
Thanks, Terry, and thank you all for joining us this morning. As Terry mentioned, CME Group generated impressive third quarter financial growth. Revenue of 1.7 billion was up 13% from the third quarter in 2025. This marks a record for third quarter revenue in aggregate and included a new all-time quarterly record for market data at 243 million. Market data revenues were up 20% and delivered the 34th consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth.
Adjusted expenses were 532 million for the quarter and 428 million excluding license fees. The strong growth in volume this quarter, led by our equity complex up 23%, resulted in an increase in license fees which are primarily related to equity activity. Our revenue growth and operating leverage resulted in an adjusted operating income of 1.2 billion, up 15% year over year, or a 69.4% adjusted operating margin. Adjusted net income was 1.1 billion, resulting in adjusted diluted earnings per share of $3.02, up 13% from Q3 2025. Our adjusted net income margin for the quarter was 62.4%, reinforcing our commitment to disciplined capital return. We returned nearly $1 billion to shareholders during the quarter with $465 million in regular quarterly dividends and $524 million in share repurchases.
The third quarter results underscore CME Group’s position as the primary destination for global risk management. Delivering double-digit volume growth across every single asset class drove double-digit gains in both revenue and earnings, resulting in the second highest revenue, adjusted net income and earnings per share of any quarter in our history. Through the first three quarters this year, our revenues have grown by 9% and our adjusted earnings per share by 11%.
Our strong year-to-date momentum reflects robust client demand across our global benchmark products and continued innovation to best serve our clients. As we enter the fourth quarter, volume is surpassing last year’s record fourth quarter by 17% and we are tracking 12% ahead of last year’s record volume year to date. As we remain firmly on track to deliver another record year, our focus remains on delivering deep, liquid markets and maximizing capital efficiencies for our clients and strong earnings for our shareholders. We’d now like to open up the call for your questions.
OPERATOR
The phone lines are now open for questions. If you would like to ask a question over the phone, please press star one and record your name. To withdraw your question, press star two. The first question in the queue is from Chris Allen with KBW. Your line is now open.
Chris Allen (Analyst at KBW)
Yeah, morning everyone. I wanted to ask on compute futures. I know the CFTC extended the comment period. Just wondering if you see any hurdles to launching this product. Judging our review of the comments, doesn’t seem like any real pushback there. Maybe any update on client feedback/ appetite for compute futures and then whether you’re seeing any incremental impact from hyperscalers and data centers within the energy product complex.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Chris. Chris, it’s Terry Duffy. I’m going to start in. I’ll let Derek make some comments as well on the client development. Derek can touch on it because Derek and I and Kivi all have been working with clients on the street as it relates to compute futures and what they mean for their portfolios and their businesses. As far as the timing of the agency goes, that is still unknown. As you know, they extended the comment period another 45 days, which ends, I believe, on November 9th.
So then they have to make a decision on what they want to do. We think this is a product that needs to get out. When you look at all the conversation around data centers, AI, hyperscalers, chips, we have people contacting us that are looking — and Julie Winkler can reference it — about how they need to manage this risk in this ever-changing landscape that they’re in. So I would hope that the government would allow this product to move forward sooner rather than later.
But again, it’s in their hands right now and there’s not much more we can do until we get the approval from the government. As you know, this was filed under a 40.3, which is a full review of the process, and we respect the processes so we’ll look forward to that going forward. And again, I think we’re playing the long game as it relates to compute futures, but we wanted to make sure we get this product launched so that people can manage their risk. And Derek, I’ll let you talk a little bit more about the client side.
Derek Sammann (Senior Managing Director, Global Head of Commodities, Options & International Markets)
Yeah, thanks, Chris. I think this has been a tremendous source of client engagement. If you think about how we’ve been working on this, we’ve seen this opportunity talking to our customers. We’ve been working on compute for almost two years now. Given the nature and the scale of our energy franchise, where this sits so nicely in connection to our nat gas franchise and the rest of our hedging tools, we’re the natural partner for customers to partner with to develop new products.
So looking at this over the last two years — a lot of time looking at different indexers and PRAs and providers — we landed on Silicon Data as what we think the most robust provider of data. We see them providing data observation at huge scale across dozens of platforms and thousands of data points and all types of transactions. We also see them having a robust data set out across the forward curve, and that’s crucial for developing an index that is going to be the basis for a futures contract.
Another important point is that Silicon Data’s index is already IOSCO, meaning it’s globally ready to be adopted by the community for the benchmark product itself. In terms of the client participation base, we’re seeing really early adoption coming from the neo cloud players, data center operators, banks. If you think about the banks, they’re significantly exposed to the AI infrastructure on their leveraged portfolios and where they’re lending for the growth there. So their exposure to the AI sector creates an unhedgeable risk. This is a solution for that.
We’ve also seen a lot of interest from funds and corps, and as it relates to potential cross-sell opportunities, much like we saw when we built out battery metals, this is bringing new commercial customers into our orbit that previously hadn’t used our products to manage the risk in their portfolios. So this is opening new opportunities with chip providers and different kinds of participants that we can actually cross-sell opportunities into. So I think it’s early days. As Terry said, we’re ready to go. We’re waiting for regulatory review, but I can say definitively this product has a significant amount of client demand and the street is eager to be able to access these. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Chris.
OPERATOR
The next question is from Patrick Moley with Piper Sandler. Your line is open.
Patrick Moley (Analyst at Piper Sandler)
Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. So I had one on 24/7 trading. Gold and silver are now trading around the clock and I think in the deck you said weekend volumes were at about 20 to 30% of those contracts’ ADV, so there’s clearly demand there. But you did withdraw the 10-barrel WTI filing after the CFTC stay and the industry pushback that you cited. So could you just walk us through maybe what the key constituents’ concerns actually were there and what the path and timeline is to maybe bringing 24/7 energy back, and then maybe more broadly, just how are you thinking about which asset classes you could potentially bring 24/7 next?
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Patrick. And you highlighted the success we’ve had with both the gold, silver, and the cryptocurrencies trading 24/7. As we move forward and put forth an application for a 24/7 small 10-barrel oil contract, we’re trying to give the marketplace an opportunity to hedge over the weekend as they are doing today. Even though participants are trading on what is called a VPN and they’re trading overseas on markets that U.S. participants are not supposed to be participating on.
But yet we have not seen any evidence of any policing of that activity. So I’m very surprised by that, to be honest with you. So I’m surprised our 24/7 oil got held up. Let’s talk about that for a second — why. From the commercial side, commercials are looking to make sure that they have the big contract where they want it, and we support that. They did not want to staff up another desk. We respect that. We respect that there’s cost to moving to 24/7 on any product and this one in particular as well. So we wanted to be mindful, respectful of the commercial participants and what they’re hearing today. But I think the bigger question is what is the agency doing?
What are others doing to make certain that U.S. participants are adhering to U.S. law? So for now we heed the advice of the commercial participants and we will hold off on listing that contract until people are more comfortable.
Patrick Moley (Analyst at Piper Sandler)
As far as other products go — did you say, Patrick? Yeah. Just how do you think about which asset classes to bring 24/7 next? What makes sense?
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
So I’m a big believer — and I’ve said this publicly too, Patrick, as you know — when you go to 24/7, I think the market’s ultimately going to 24/7 on all products. But you need to have the infrastructure to support 24/7. As I’ve said, the U.S. equity market alone is $76 trillion. Nobody can prefund that on a Friday. It’s really important that we have an infrastructure in the United States that’s set up to handle 24/7 markets — not just for crypto, not just for maybe a small silver, gold, or oil contract, but for our primary products.
So it’s going to be harder and harder for anybody to list a primary product until the infrastructure of the banking system goes 24/7, because that’s what lends credibility to the participant and makes certain that we have the liquidity and the back-office support in order to run those markets.
Patrick Moley (Analyst at Piper Sandler)
Okay, great. Thanks, Terry.
OPERATOR
The next question is from Alex Cram with UBS. Your line is open.
Alex Cram (Analyst at UBS)
Yes. Hey, good morning everyone. Actually, just a quick numbers question, if I can. On the below-the-line items, the interest income on a net basis kind of surprised me a bit. I think the clearinghouse assets went down, I think a couple of percent quarter over quarter, but I think the net interest went down 8%. I know there’s a few other things that go in there in terms of your own cash and obviously rates environment. So just maybe you can just give us a detailed view quarter over quarter — what exactly happened there — so we can maybe model that a little bit better.
Lynne Cook Fitzpatrick (President and Chief Financial Officer)
Sure, Alex. So if you look at cash at the clearinghouse, the average balances for the quarter were $147 billion in Q3. That was down from about $150 billion in Q2, with a similar return of about 33 basis points that we earned. We did have an increase in our corporate cash. We had about $27 million in earnings on that in the quarter. You obviously then have the JV income that is rolling through that line. Interest expense was relatively flat. So it was really the balance changes that you’re seeing roll through there.
Alex Cram (Analyst at UBS)
All right, easy enough. Thank you.
OPERATOR
The next question is from Dan Fannin with Jefferies. Your line is open.
Dan Fannin (Analyst at Jefferies)
Good morning. I was hoping to talk about pricing. If you could talk to the changes that went into effect here in early October in more detail as well as the potential implications to you from any of the — from the changes in the CBOE S&P licensing deal through your JV ownership.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Dan. Good question. I’ll let Lynne go ahead and start on the pricing, and I might touch on the CBOE one as well.
Lynne Cook Fitzpatrick (President and Chief Financial Officer)
So on the pricing side, we did have some impacts that were implemented here on October 1st. We’re expecting, if you look at an annualized basis, those to have an impact of somewhere in the range of a half to 1% of the clearing and transaction fees. So I would say the lines where you’re seeing those changes — they’re going to be in crypto, some in our grains complex. We did address some of the tiers in interest rates and then the micro equities as well.
Just to keep in mind, we did have some pricing changes in April. We are moving away from having that annual price increase, and we are looking at doing more spread out over the course of the year when we see changes in marketplaces, when we see value creation at that point. So that’s what this is reflective of.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
And Dan, on the CBO licensing agreement, obviously we all know it’s a 25-year extension they put forward. There’s a couple interesting points in that. As you know, we’re a partner in the JV, so we benefit from that licensing agreement with CBO. What’s really interesting about that is we benefit starting in 2027 on potential increases, not 2032, because their agreement — the escalation of the pricing — starts in 2017. What those are exactly is yet to be disclosed from CBO and S&P Global.
But we know that we’ve been working with our partner at S&P Global and we know that they do escalate. So whatever they are, we’ll wait and see like everybody else. But we know we’re in a much better situation economically with the S&P deal going forward, and we’re there actually five years ahead of time getting paid at a higher rate. So we’ll wait and see until they report on what exactly the nuance of the numbers are. But from our scene, it’s very much a winning proposal from CME’s perspective and our shareholders.
Thank you. Thanks, Dan.
OPERATOR
The next question is from Michael Cypress with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Michael Cyprys (Analyst at Morgan Stanley)
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to ask about single stock futures. I was hoping you could talk about the distribution strategy as you’re working with retail brokers on the product, what the feedback has been, and then related to that, given you already have a prediction market today, I guess what’s the scope to potentially introduce prediction markets on single stocks? Kind of equivalent to maybe a single stock future, but more of a prediction market contract.
Do you think there might be appetite for that and what might be the required build there?
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
So three questions that you asked there, Michael, and I’m going to ask Tim McCourt and maybe Julie Winkler to chime in as far as the distribution, the clients, and then I’ll talk a little bit about the prediction side of your question. So, Tim, I’ll start with you.
Tim McCourt (Senior Managing Director, Global Head of Financial & OTC Products)
Yeah, Michael, appreciate the question. So we launched single stock futures and off to a good and strong start for that product. We’ve done a little bit over 350,000 contracts since launch, which is about $3.5 billion of notional. And I think what’s important to note when we look at the distribution, we have two size products. We have the 100-share multiplier across 55 of the largest names in the US and we have the 10-share multiplier across 22 names, a subset of that 55.
So when we look at the distribution strategy, it’s really a continuation of making sure that all market participants, whether they’re institutional or individual traders, have products they need to access these markets and manage the risk. When we look at the distribution, I think the one thing that we’re encouraged by is we do have global participation in these products. When we look at the European and APAC market, we’ve also seen strong uptake where they are more familiar with the product regionally and this is something that is relatively reintroduced in the US perspective.
So when we look at the partnerships, the tapping into the 130+ retail firms that we work with alongside the several dozen FCMs that we have on the side, we’re encouraged by the growth we’ve seen. But with any new product, we’re reintroducing an interesting new market structure for that financially settled single stock future. It does take time to work with our FCMs, to work with our vendors. As we head into the last quarter here of 2026, we’re encouraged by what we see and then we look forward to continuing to have it grow from here, but strong performance on this product out of the gate.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Tim. Julie, you want to add a little bit?
Julie Winkler (Chief Commercial Officer)
Yeah. As Tim pointed out, we’ve had commercial momentum across over 50 countries globally. The interest is definitely there. Just from a perspective of what’s most interesting to clients, certainly on the institutional side, this is a capital and margin efficiency play. We have said this is a core tenet of our strategy across all of our asset classes. But I think particularly for this product, the ability to cross margin single stock futures against the robust equity index products and it’s helping them unlock additional equity financing capacity.
The buy-side firm that we are speaking with are also actively embedding single stock futures into their QIS strategies and long-short equity models. So that’s certainly positive. And when we look on the retail side, we’ve got distribution to 25 of our top retail broker partners today. And this is, you know, the value proposition for them is really, it’s an options alternative and we’re looking at it, as are our clients and brokers, as a key differentiator across leverage, static delta, zero option Greeks. And it doesn’t have any time decay. So for us, the focus has very much been on building up that liquidity. And as Tim pointed out, we have some additional FCMs that are coming live here in Q4.
So we think we’ve got some great momentum going in through the end of the year.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
And Michael, on your question, as it relates to predictions on single stocks, you got to remember we listed single stock futures going way back in 2000. The product did not get off the ground very well because of a whole host of reasons and I don’t need to go through them right now, but we’ve been working hard, Tim and his team have been working hard, Julie and her team have been working hard to make sure that we can have a successful single stock futures contract moving forward because we do believe it’s an important instrument for participants from the retail to the largest institutions to use.
But I don’t think you can draw the conclusion that every single market has to have a prediction market associated with it. And I think that you’re getting a narrative right now where people believe that every market should have a prediction market associated with it. It doesn’t make it right to do that. So I’m not suggesting that we would not want to go down to have a prediction market on single stock futures. What I think is critically important is single stock futures get off the ground the way they’ve been doing, methodically working, looking at this, at the long game.
And then if we want to introduce another version of it with a prediction market, we will do so at that time, once we get a better sample of the client base and how they are participating. But right now, this is really important for this product, which has been duly regulated. There’s been a whole host of concerns going forward that we need to analyze and make a decision how we’re going to do that going forward. This contract will go forward without predictions to start with, for sure.
Michael Cyprys (Analyst at Morgan Stanley)
Great, thank you.
OPERATOR
The next question in the queue is from Craig Siegenthaler with Bank of America. Your line is open.
Craig Siegenthaler (Analyst at Bank of America)
Thanks. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking my question. Our question is on the CFTC perpetual suit. How should we weigh the perpetuals lawsuit against your earlier comments that clients aren’t asking for perpetuals? And if the case is dismissed and perps are deemed futures in the US, would CME list its own perpetuals given its exclusivity in equity index futures?
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Craig, thank you for the question. And our new general counsel, John Marchese, is on the line. John, I’ll let you go ahead and start and then I’ll go from there.
John Marchese (General Counsel)
Yeah. So in terms of the lawsuit itself, as you know, a motion to dismiss has been filed. We’ve opposed it. We are very confident in our position, and we are also going to brief the substance of the case and expect it to be forwarded for the judge in December. So we are confident in our position and we are awaiting the court’s decision or eager to get a decision. We think it will fall in our favor. And I’ll kick it back to you, Terry, on the sort of question strategically about what that means going forward.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
So, Craig, your question is if we’re not being harmed. Did you say something to that effect? Can you repeat that last part?
Craig Siegenthaler (Analyst at Bank of America)
Yes. So if the case is dismissed, or essentially if you guys lose it and the perp is deemed as future in the U.S., I believe you have exclusivity with equity index, you could have a monopoly in that business. Would you then turn around and launch perpetuals in that category where there might be strong demand and you could sort of own it?
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah. Again, Craig, I think I’ll go back to my earlier answer around prediction markets. We’ll make that decision if and when the time comes. Whatever the court decides, we will abide by the court’s decisions and we will move forward. The question is, would we list perps or not? That question has yet to be asked and answered yet publicly. So I will tell you that for now, the question of is it a perpetual or is it a future or is it a swap? I mean, all you have to do is Google the definition of a swap and it’s no different than a fixed versus floating rate when you look at a swap today.
And when you look at a swap on perpetuals under Dodd Frank, it suggests a swap is designed as two people exchanging payments for that similar product. That is called the funding rate of the perp and that is deemed a swap. So we’re fairly confident in our position on that. But again, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it and not until. So I would not make a decision one way or another if we would go forward with perps or not. But again, we feel very strongly about our case as our general counsel.
Craig Siegenthaler (Analyst at Bank of America)
Thank you, Terry.
OPERATOR
Thanks, Craig. The next question is from Simon Clinch with Rothschild & Co Redburn. Your line is open.
Simon Clinch (Analyst at Rothschild & Co Redburn)
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if we could just jump to the market data business. Obviously it’s been a couple of quarters now of 20% growth, if not more. And I was wondering if you could just walk through again the kind of secular drivers here and how we should think about the normal kind of growth rate from this business going forward.
Julie Winkler (Chief Commercial Officer)
Yeah, so thanks for the question, Simon. It was another record quarter. 20%, $243 million. And how I’ll break that down for you is that we’re really seeing an incredibly diverse mix of drivers across the entire ecosystem. And the group is really broken down into three main buckets. One third has been from our expanding professional subscriber base and that’s for our real-time market data. One third coming from our retail and sim platforms. So that’s our non-professional subscribers.
And the remainder in that last category is really driven by a combination of increased data feed demand, the term SOFR, some of the pricing adjustments that we’ve made, and a few more policy changes. So really what we’re seeing is that this demand for CME data has been increasing as clients need access to our prices for trading, for research and product creation. And that’s really right in the middle of a really dynamic macroeconomic environment and characterized by a lot of sustained global volatility. I heard this firsthand when I attended the Global Market Data conference in Copenhagen last week and was engaging with many of our market data partners and our clients.
The last part, we had 4.7 billion in audits this quarter and some catch-up payments for prior period use, so that was a little below what we saw in Q2. And I would just say data continues to be a critical input and it is a leading indicator for our markets. We’re continuing to invest in this growing business. And also keep in mind that a lot of our market data business is driven outside the US and so that demand, over 50%, comes from outside the US.
Data business is almost always a first-to-customer asset for us and solution for them. And so we’re continuing to listen to our customers, improve the client experience, but we don’t share specific expectations about future growth.
Simon Clinch (Analyst at Rothschild & Co Redburn)
Great, thanks very much. Thank you.
OPERATOR
The next question is from Dan Weldon with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.
Dan Weldon (Analyst at Wells Fargo)
Hi, good morning. I have a question about innovation speed. If I look at slide 8 from this morning, you’ve got 15 new announcements or launches. And I go back a few quarters and that was more like single digit. So am I right to think that the cadence is increasing here? And you’ve historically framed roughly 2% of your growth algorithm coming from new products, but with the things like compute, single stock futures, other things we talked about today, does that 2% feel conservative at this moment?
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, thank you, Dan. Appreciate it.
Julie Winkler (Chief Commercial Officer)
Yeah, I’ll start out and then Jack will fill in. Certainly it has been a busy year for product launches. You’re correct in that we’ve had 368 new products year to date. And that is in addition to advances that we’re making in our execution technology where we’re looking to introduce things like TreasuryLink. These are things where we’ve proven we have the technology to be able to do this work, but we also have the throughput from being able to quickly launch these new products on both the institutional as well as the retail side. And that means a lot of partnership with our distribution networks as well as with our market data network to make that successful. I think it proves that we can move quickly, as well as we are the only TradFi exchange that is offering 24/7 products.
And that doesn’t just happen because we will it to be done. It takes a lot of work and technical agility on our part, and we’ve proven we can do that. Lynne can.
Lynne Cook Fitzpatrick (President and Chief Financial Officer)
I think, yeah. Thanks, Julie. Dan, to your question, I don’t know if there’s a fundamental change in the outlook. We typically don’t break down a percent of what’s coming from new products going forward. I think we’re in an environment now where there are many new risks that are coming forward that we are looking to address for our client base. I think the beauty of having the broad product set that we have is that when we do go to launch new products, it’s typically in a space where those clients are already connected. So we’re meeting that need and that additional risk for clients that are already connected to CME. So we’ll continue to look at areas that new risks are evolving and look to meet that need with new products. But it’s hard to forecast what the years ahead will bring. But we certainly feel that we are in a good position to continue to grow and to debut products as those needs arise.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, and thank you for your question. I think I referred to you as Tom, so I apologize. I know it’s Dan, so welcome. I know you’re a newer analyst to CME, so thank you for your question. Appreciate it.
OPERATOR
Thank you. The next question comes from Bill Katz with TD Cowen. Your line is open. Okay, thank you.
Bill Katz (Analyst at TD Cowen)
Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking the question. Maybe to mix up the topics a little bit, I was wondering if you could talk a little about capital priorities from here. It’s great to see the continued buyback, if you will. There’s been a fair amount of industry consolidation, maybe more in the cash markets than the futures market. But how are you thinking about sort of priorities from there? Maybe buyback versus anything on the inorganic side?
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Bill. And it’s a great question. I’ll let Lynne start and then I will chime in as well.
Lynne Cook Fitzpatrick (President and Chief Financial Officer)
Yes. So, Bill, I would point out, obviously, we had the Ostra funds that we were looking to return through the repurchase program, and we have now completed the redeploy of that. So I want to make sure that was noted. What we like about our capital return policy is the flexibility. So whether that’s our variable dividend structure or the repurchase, we have the ability to be flexible. So if opportunities were to come up on the inorganic side, we have that ability to flex.
We also have a very low debt load. So we set up our capital structure in a way that gives us a lot of optionality. That being said, we have tended over time to be a lot more choosy when it comes to M&A. We’re not active in that market at all times. What we tend to look for are things where we’re bringing additional clients or additional products or driving additional capital efficiencies for our customer base. So we tend to be a bit more focused within our lane when it comes to M&A. But I think we’ve got a unique capital structure that gives us a lot of ability to hit edge.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
And just to add to what Lynne said, Bill, I mean, we have been very disciplined. Our debt load is probably the lowest in our sector for sure, and among other companies of our size. So that does put us in a very advantageous situation if we were to do something. Also, I think when you look at our mixture of return of capital going as a dividend-paying stock since 2002 to today and returning capital that way, and now with the share repurchase, I just want to emphasize how important that is to different constituents of people who own CME and how they like to have that capital returned to them, whether it’s through buybacks, whether it’s through the special dividend, whether it’s through the quarterly dividend.
But we are in a very, very strong position to do a lot of different things if we so choose. And again, I think what Lynne said is right. We just don’t go out kicking and shopping for things that we don’t think we need just to buy to buy. So we’re very focused. And I think the reason why we stay focused is because when you look at that $100 billion of efficiencies that Lynne referenced a moment ago, that was just $40 billion not too long ago. And these are things that we have been able to accomplish not only with the growth, but some of the plug-and-play technology and other things that we have to enhance the volume of our business.
So that to us is how we grow the business.
Bill Katz (Analyst at TD Cowen)
Thank you.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Bill.
OPERATOR
And the next question is from Ken Worthington with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open.
Ken Worthington (Analyst at J.P. Morgan)
Hi. Good morning, everybody. I wanted to ask about the trends in open interest and how you see relative importance of the data as you think about the volume outlook. So as of September 30, 2026 versus September 30, 2025, Equity Open Interest was up 0.2%, Interest Rate OI was up 1.2% and Energy OI was down 3.6%. So it appeared to be a very strong environment for all three asset classes and volumes were up low to mid teens across the board in 3Q, as you highlighted.
But it’s velocity that’s driving volume, not OI. So the question is why didn’t OI really grow in the quarter in these products and how big a factor is this in the outlook for volumes as we start to think about 2027?
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
So I am very much of the mindset, Ken, that we talk about open interest because it shows the people that are parking their positions on CME’s books to manage risk. I referenced a number of 133 million open positions as of this morning. Our open interest has been sitting at very lofty levels for a long time, and the reason why I think that is more impressive today than it was as little as five years ago is because we didn’t have some of these option products that expire on a short-term basis like we do today.
We didn’t have weekly options expirations; we had quarterly options expirations, semi-quarterly. We had different types of products with different instruments where you would see the open interest build up significantly. So as impressive as the open interest is, and I will talk about it all the time, I think you have to look at it in the light that we do have many different expirations that we did not have just a couple years ago. So that’s why you’re seeing the numbers that you just cited a moment ago. But again, I think that is a good problem to have, to maintain levels in these single digits when you’re having expirations on a weekly basis versus either a monthly or a quarterly basis.
That’s the big difference.
Ken Worthington (Analyst at J.P. Morgan)
Great, thank you.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Ken.
OPERATOR
And the next question is from Ben Butish with Barclays. Your line is open.
Ben Butish (Analyst at Barclays)
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if you could spend a minute on TreasuryLink. It looks like that’s now live and testing. Could you maybe talk about any kind of early reads or feedback and then maybe remind us about how you’re thinking about the market opportunity, the potential size of the market that you’re thinking about going after and the economic model. Is this simply collateral balances and BrokerTec revenues or what else should we be thinking about there?
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Ben. I’ll let Mike go ahead and talk a little bit about that. It’s been a little bonkers going on as it relates to some of the TreasuryLink stuff, so I’ll let Mike go ahead and touch on it.
Mike
Yeah, no, thanks, Terry. It has been an interesting time in the rates landscape. Obviously no shortage of things going on in the interest rate complex. But to get to your question, Ben, on TreasuryLink, it’s an industry-first treasury functionality that will enable transparent, centralized spread trading between Treasury futures and broker cash Treasuries on CME Globex. This new offering really connects the two leading U.S. Treasury liquidity pools, bringing unique innovation, and it will enable guaranteed execution of anybody trading cash-for-future spread transactions and eliminate legging risk in the process.
Happy to say that over the weekend TreasuryLink is live now in our new release environment and clients have been testing the functionality this week, and we’ve seen a lot of strong demand from both existing and prospective new participants who are interested in realizing execution efficiencies between cash and futures. And TreasuryLink really just represents the next stage in an initiative to bring our cash and futures markets closer together. We’re looking at, aside from Treasuries futures versus cash, what are some other things that we can do to link products together?
This is an evolving time in the Treasury landscape. We have a new Fed Chair who’s committed to overhauling their communication strategy. We continue to see record debt levels, we see Treasury intervention in our markets, and we’re fast approaching the Treasury and repo clearing mandate. So it’s just another example of how the CME Group continues to evolve and innovate, deliver efficiency to our clients alongside the $30 billion in margin savings across futures, options, swaps and cash.
So appreciate the question, more to come, but thanks, Ben.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Ben. Thanks, Mike.
OPERATOR
And the next question is from Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
Brian Bedell (Analyst at Deutsche Bank)
Great, thanks. Good morning, folks. Thanks for taking my question. Terry, one for you just to maybe come back to perpetuals and retail more broadly. So you did talk about systemic risk. Just maybe if you can just update us on your view on if equity index perpetual futures were to be approved in the U.S., how are you viewing that as a systemic risk potential? And I guess do you see that potential approval ever coming to fruition or do you think there’d be enough industry resistance?
And then combined with that you’ve seen obviously very good growth in the equity index micros. And so maybe just talk about how you view retail being able to trade equity indices and single stocks.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Of course.
Brian Bedell (Analyst at Deutsche Bank)
And do you think there’s literally enough tools for them to do that now without the need for perpetuals?
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, Brian, again as I said earlier and I don’t want to expand too much further on the argument of perpetuals if there’s swaps or futures. So again as I said earlier, I’ll let the courts make that decision. As far as systemic risk that you’re referring to and I made that comment, I made that comment in reference to the leverage part of perpetuals that have been traded overseas. I made the comment when the amount of leverage was anywhere from 25 to 50 to 250% leverage that are being traded on some of these overseas platforms, not here in the U.S. That’s what I said is a systemic risk.
I guess what you’re referring to as far as single stock futures, what was your question on that one, Brian?
Brian Bedell (Analyst at Deutsche Bank)
Just as a, I guess, two-parter there, another tool obviously for retail to trade this. That’s good to see, but also there, I guess, do you have the same view on perpetuals for single stocks? And I guess just since you mentioned leverage, if the leverage was contained dramatically, say less than 10 times — just making that number up at something very low — would that change your view on the systemic riskiness of the product?
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, Brian, I don’t ever give an opinion on changing my view until I actually see something in writing that suggests what it’s going to be. So a lot of people can make a lot of comments about what they think it’s going to be. So why don’t you just agree to it? I don’t operate that way. I never have. So I wait until I see what they are proposing — if they propose something as it relates to leverage caps or things of that nature. But I’ve not seen anything, so it’s really difficult for me to make a comment to you on that product.
As it relates to the opportunity for retail and single stock futures, I said it earlier and I truly believe it. I think this is a product that is going to be widely accepted from the retail participant to the institutional participants. And I think it’s going to be something that is well overdue and needed. So I think our client base is looking for it. When you have the last, say, five to seven years with the Mag 7, Mag 9 — whatever you want to call it — any single day, for people to have single stock futures on some of these products that trade a big portion of some of these indices I think will be very attractive for both constituents of retail and institutional.
Julie or Tim, you want to comment further?
Julie Winkler (Chief Commercial Officer)
Yeah, I mean, I’ll just add, Brian, we are highly focused on evolving our product suite to be positioned to capture retail demand. We delivered on the retail business the tenth consecutive quarter of double-digit retail client acquisition growth. We welcomed well over 100,000 new retail traders into our markets in this past quarter, and that was a 40% increase from where we were a year ago. We are doing that — we’ve talked about it on this call. We had a new record in our Nano suite yesterday of over 21,000 contracts traded. We spoke to the single stock futures success earlier being available 24-by-7. This is what our clients are demanding. And working closely with our retail partners, we continue to ramp those education and those marketing efforts through the remainder of the year. We believe this growth is going to be achieved by upholding our rigorous risk management frameworks and that structural integrity that we’ve talked about on this call.
And that is what’s helping to define and really grow our retail business here.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Julie. Brian, hopefully that addresses some of your questions, and I don’t duck any questions. So hopefully that—
Brian Bedell (Analyst at Deutsche Bank)
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Great color. Thank you very much.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Brian. Appreciate your question.
OPERATOR
The next question is from Ashish Sabhadra with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Will Chi (Analyst at RBC Capital Markets)
Hey, good morning, guys. This is Will Chi on for Ashish Sabhadra. Appreciate you guys squeezing us in. Maybe a quick question on the newly launched NHL Futures Sports indices and their corresponding futures instruments. Seems to be kind of an interesting position to step away from the sports betting that you guys don’t want to get involved in. It’s kind of aligned with the IOSCO framework for benchmarks. But with the early days, about a month in, what’s the early traction you’ve seen with that product?
Is it coming from institutional demand? Is there any retail demand? What’s the runway you expect for that?
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
That’s a good question. Thank you. It is a new product, so we don’t want to judge it too early in the season. I’ll let Tim go ahead and make a comment as it relates to— Tim.
Tim McCourt (Senior Managing Director, Global Head of Financial & OTC Products)
Thanks, Terry. And thanks, Will, for the question. I think what’s interesting about this opportunity and partnering with Futures Sports and trying to bring risk management and access to the professional sports industry and economy in the U.S. is that this is different, in the sense this is based on the statistical performance of the teams that, as you pointed out, are indexed in accordance with IOSCO principles and guidelines. And when we look at building new risk management capabilities, one of the first things to do is work with the market to ascribe that transparent, trusted, real-time price of what that risk is valued at at any given moment and then build the product ecosystem around it. And that’s why we’re excited about the opportunity. And then when we look at how this can be used, it is very attractive on the institutional-grade front.
When you think about — if you read some of the reports — the $650 billion U.S. sports value per year, that community largely has an unmet need to manage those associated risks, to hedge that related to the operation of venues to the performance of that team. So it’s really interesting to be able to introduce these products. But like a lot of products, it’s really about bringing that diversified participant mix to it. So we are also working on the individual-size contracts and working with our retail partners to make sure that those smaller-sized individuals can access these markets and also hedge their needs. So we’re excited about the opportunity. You know, it’s early days, just a few weeks in, but we’re excited and look forward to continuing to work with Futures Sports to bring risk management to the sports industry here in the U.S.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Will, thank you for the question. Tim, thanks for the response.
OPERATOR
The next question is from Michael Cyprys with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Michael Cyprys (Analyst at Morgan Stanley)
Thanks for taking the follow-up. I just wanted to ask about the $100 billion of margin efficiencies that you mentioned. That seems to be up quite a bit from a year, even two years ago. I was hoping you could elaborate on the drivers of that expansion over the past year. How much of that relates to simply more activity on the platform versus the impact of newer initiatives like the FICC cross-margining? And as you look out over the next couple of years, what new initiatives do you think could be most meaningful to take that higher at, say, flat volumes?
Thank you.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Higher. I like that one. Mike, go ahead.
Lynne Cook Fitzpatrick (President and Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, so it’s really broad based, Mike, which is what’s important. So you’re going to have the increased level of activity, the increased level of open interest. You’re seeing growth across all the different asset classes. You did mention some of the specific extensions to cross-margining which Mike can touch on. We’re definitely seeing good success on the FICC cross-margining as well as the swap offsets in rates, but we’re seeing growth in the equity complex.
We’re seeing growth in the energy offset as well as the rates component. So it’s really across the base. But Mike, why don’t you comment on the specifics?
Mike
Yes, appreciate it, Lynne. And Michael, thanks for the question. I’m going to touch a little bit on portfolio margin as it relates to our swap business, and then I’ll also talk about some growth trends that we’re seeing in our CME FICC cross-margining program now that FCM partners are taking advantage of the savings with cascading that down to client accounts. So, if you look at portfolio margining in our swaps business, Q3 resulted in a new record. We saw a new daily savings of $14 billion occurring on September 30th — that was a record. I would say if we look at savings in September, that averaged $13.2 billion and that was up 58% versus September of 2025. And new clients joining our portfolio margin program have really contributed to that savings. And just to put that into perspective, in 2024 that swap savings number was around $7.2–$7.3 billion per day.
It’s closer to $14. So we’ve seen a lot of growth there. If we look at our CME FICC cross-margining program, we have about 24 clearing members currently registered for the program and we expect there to be a ramp-up period as FCMs complete operational readiness. Firms are very engaged. They’re meeting with us. Many of them are targeting Q4 to be fully up and running for that cross-margining program prior to the Treasury repo clearing mandate. But we’re seeing strong growth there. September average daily savings in the program was $2.3 billion a day and we saw a record day in Q3 of $2.7 billion.
So that’s kind of come off that $1.5 number that we talked about in the beginning of the year. So just want to highlight where we’ve seen growth, particularly in the rates environment.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Let me just touch for a second, because I think we talk a lot about the rates, but I think the equities is such a huge part of that $100 billion. And Tim, maybe you can give a little color on that as well.
Tim McCourt (Senior Managing Director, Global Head of Financial & OTC Products)
Yeah, thanks, Terry. And Michael, thanks for the question. I think when we look at the equity savings almost coming in just under $47 billion for Q3, that’s up substantially versus the levels put up in prior quarters and in 2025. And that comes from two main things. One is the base offset that we have in our base F&O at CME Group which is just under $42 billion. And we also have the CME-OCC cross-margin agreement which delivered a little over $5 billion this quarter.
And I think what’s interesting, Michael, to your question is when we look at in the equity complex where some of those savings are coming from. If we look at all of 2026, about 60% of the increase is coming from new positions established at CME Group and about 40% from rising index levels or rising asset levels and margin being posted at CME. So it’s really encouraging to see that coming from that organic new activity and risk being moved to CME Group to capture and take advantage of these capital efficiencies.
And to get a little bit more color on that, one prime example of how the clients in the marketplace are taking advantage: we look at the growth of our OTC swap alternative products at CME Group — the average daily open interest in Q3 of our dividend futures, dividend options and our adjusted interest rate total return futures — that OI grew 30% year over year to 2.6 million contracts, worth just under $500 billion of additional open interest, or contract value in open interest, being moved to CME.
And this is a continuation of a longstanding trend at CME Group of futurizing the swap market and bringing new flow and new participants to the equity complex at CME Group to take advantage of these capital efficiencies.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Tim. Mike, appreciate the question.
Michael Cyprys (Analyst at Morgan Stanley)
Great, thank you.
OPERATOR
And the last question in the queue is from Simon Clinch with Rothschild & Co Redburn, your line is open.
Simon Clinch (Analyst at Rothschild & Co Redburn)
Hi, thanks for squeezing me in for a follow-up. Again, Terry, a bit of a broader question here as we think about the retail platforms and perhaps some FCMs eventually moving to explore launching products in their own right, be it prediction markets, perpetuals or whatever, or even other options perhaps. But as that happens, how do you expect the relationship between CME Group and those partners to develop where the economic incentive becomes more prevalent for them to steer volume towards their in-house products where they earn more of the economics?
Just kind of curious as your view on that.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, thanks, Sam, for the question. I’d be speculating at best, but when we just got done speaking about 100-plus billion dollars of efficiencies, that’s really difficult to replicate with all the things that we have done. Retail traditionally does not carry much open interest. As you know, we’ve said this historically: 94% of CME Group’s business is institutionally driven. So again, I think when you’re looking at what you’re suggesting is platforms listing their own products, is that more attractive than coming to CME Group?
You know, you need to have an ecosystem of liquidity from the biggest institutions in the world that are at CME Group. We have cited that through our open interest, that retail needs to participate with retail. Trading with just retail and prop is not a long-term solution for any particular product. So you need to have all the different participants coming in. So I think our value proposition is strong, and those same participants that you’re referring to are very, very large clients of CME Group, and I think they benefit immensely by being here at CME Group, participating in those liquidity pools, generating those efficiencies and, for themselves, benefiting their own bottom line. So again, I think what we are doing is a value-added proposition and, again, very difficult to replicate, and it’s moves that we have made historically.
But again, I think you can’t stress enough the ecosystem, how important it is. And just to think that retail trading against retail or prop is a long-term proposition for a successful market — I have not seen one in my 46 years in the business.
Simon Clinch (Analyst at Rothschild & Co Redburn)
That’s great.
OPERATOR
Thank you very much. Thanks, Simon. Appreciate it. Seeing no further questions, I will now turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.
Terry Duffy (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you very much. We appreciate everyone participating in the call. We are very proud of our record quarter today. It’s a very dangerous world out there. We see risk management continuing to be a big part of it. I hope everyone stays safe and healthy. And thank you very much for participating in today’s call.
OPERATOR
This concludes today’s call. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at this time.
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