Cme Group Inc. (CME) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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-answer session of today's conference. I will now turn the call over to Adam Minnick. Please go ahead.

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.

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 in central bank policies, geopolitical uncertainty, and persistent market volatility. Global participants continue to turn to CME Group in record numbers. daily volume of 29.4 million contracts was the highest third quarter average daily volume in CME groups, 10% compared to the same period double-digit year-over-year volume growth and commodity products volume. 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 a 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 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 product innovation remains central to our strategy. During the quarter, we launched several new products, including single-stock futures and e-nano equity index futures. And a 24-7 trading to both our 1-ounce gold and 100-ounce silver contracts, building on the strong traction of our 24-7 cryptocurrency products launched earlier this 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. However, true innovation must always be anchored in market integrity, financial safeguards, and client protection. Innovation without real risk management is in progress. It has the potential to create systemic risk. It's 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 call location. It's clear that market participants continue to turn to CME Group to navigate a complex and rapidly evolving global economy. 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.

Thanks, Terry. And thank you all for joining us this morning. As Terry mentioned, CME Group generated impressive third-quarter financial growth. A revenue of $1.7 billion was up 13% from the $33 million. Market data revenues were up 24th consecutive quarter of the year's expenses were $532 million for the quarter and $428 million, excluding license fees. The strong growth in volume this quarter resulted in an increase in license fees, which are primarily related to equity, resulted in an adjusted operating income of $1.2 billion, up 15% year-over-year, or 69.4% adjusted operating margin. Net income was 1.5% in diluted earnings per share, 15% from Q3 2025. Our adjusted net income margin for the quarter was returned nearly $1 billion to share, with $465 million in regular quarterly dividends and $524 million in share repurchase position as the primary destination for global risk management. Double-digit gains in both revenue and earnings. Revenue, adjusted net income, Our revenues have grown strong year-to-date momentum, reflects robust client demand across our global benchmark products, and continued innovation to best serve our clients. 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.

The phone lines are now open for questions. If you would like to ask a question over the phone, please press star 1 and record your To withdraw your question, press star 2. The first question in the queue is from Chris Allen with KBW. Your line is now open.

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. It 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 hyperscales and debtor centers within the energy product complex.

Thanks, Chris. Chris, it's Terry Duffy. I'm going to start, and I'll let Derek make some comments as well. On the client development, Derek can touch on, because Derek and I and Pete Kiwi all have been working with clients on the street as it relates to compute futures and what they mean for their portfolios in 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 and 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 this is we're playing the long game as it relates to compute futures, but we wanted to make sure we get this product up launched so people can manage their risk. And, Derek, I'll let you talk a little bit more about the client side.

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. So, you know, given the nature and the scale of our energy franchise where this sits so nicely in connection to our NatGas 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, we spent 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 now it's the data points of all types of transactions. We also see them having a robust data, and that is going to be the basis for a futures contract. Another important point is the Silicon Data Index is already IOSCO compliant, 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 neocloud players, data center operators, banks. If you think about the banks, they're significantly exposed to the AI infrastructure on their leverage portfolios and where they're lending for the growth there. So their exposure to the AI sector creates an unhedgable risk. This is a solution for that. We've also seen a lot of interest in funds and crops. 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 haven'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 all 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.

The next question is from Patrick Molley with Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. So I did one on 24-7 trading. Gold and silver are now trading around the clock, and I think at 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 that may be 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?

Thanks, Patrick. And you highlighted both the gold, silver, and the cryptocurrencies trading 24-7. As we move forward and put forth an application for our 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 our 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. But 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. Austin 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 and 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.

Yeah, just how do you think about which asset classes to bring 24-7 next? What makes sense?

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 pre-fund 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 bank. because that's what lends credibility to the participant and makes certain.

Okay, great. Thanks, Terry.

The next question is from Alex Cram with UBS. Your line is open.

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 eight. 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. Yep.

Sure, Alex. So if you look at the cash at the clearinghouse, the average balance were $147 billion in Q3. That was down from about – we did have an increase in our $27 million in earnings on that in the quarter. You obviously then have the JV income that is rolling through that line.

Easy enough.

The next question is from Dan Fannin with Jeffries. Your line is open.

Thanks. 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 changes in the CBOE S&P licensing deal through your JV ownership.

I'll let Lynn go ahead and start on the pricing, and I might touch on the CBOE one as well.

So on the pricing side, we did have some impacts that were implemented here. If you look at an annualized basis, somewhere in the range of more spread out over the course.

We all know it's a 25-year extension. They put in that. As you know, we're a partner in the JV, so we benefit from that licensing agreement with SIBO. 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 start. What those are exactly is yet to be global, and we know that they do escalate. So whatever they are, you know, we're in a much ahead of time. It's very much a winning proposal.

Thank you.

The next question is from Michael Cypress with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

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?

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. Yeah, Michael, I appreciate the question.

So we launched Single Stock Futures and off to 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 the 100-share multiplier, we have the 10-share multiplier. So when we look at the distribution strategy, it's really a continuation of making sure that all markets, I think the one thing that we're encouraged, European and APAC, where they are more familiar with the product regionally, But I think particularly for this product, right, the ability to cross-margin single-stock futures,

and it's helping them unlock, you know, additional equity financing capacity. You know, the buy-side firms 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 our clients and brokers as a key differentiator across you know leverage static Delta zero option Greeks and it doesn't have any time decay so you know for us the focus has very much been on building up that liquidity and as Tim pointed out we have some additional FCM that are coming live here in Q4 so we think we've got some great momentum I'm going in through the end of the year.

And, Michael, on your question as it relates to predictions on single stocks, you've 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. 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 that we would not want to go down to have a prediction. What I think is critically important is single stock around, 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, you know, this is really important for this product, which has been, you know, duly regulated. There's been a whole host of concerns going forward that we need to make a decision how we're going to do that going forward without prediction.

Great. Thank you.

The next question in the queue is from Craig Siegenthaler with Bank of America. Your line is open.

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 U.S., would CME list its own perpetuals given its exclusivity in equity index futures? yeah 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 going out 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 fully before the judge

in December. So we are top in our position and we are awaiting the court's decision and are 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.

So, Craig, your question is if we're not being harmed, did you say something to that effect? Can you repeat that last part?

Yeah, so if the case is dismissed or essentially if you guys lose it and the PERP is deemed a 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?

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 perp 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. You know, when you look at a swap today and when you look at a swap on potentials 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.

Thank you, Terry.

The next question is from Simon Clinch with Rothschild & Co. Redburn, your line is open.

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.

You know, how I'll break that down for you is that, you know, we're really seeing an incredibly diverse mix. And the group is really broken down into three main buckets for our real-time market data, one-third coming from our retail and SEM 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, you know, 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 a bit of a really dynamic macroeconomic environment and characterized by a lot of sustained global volatility. You know, 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, you know, we had $4.7 million 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, you know, 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 U.S., and so that demand over 50% comes from outside the U.S., data business is almost always a first-to-customer solution for them. And so we're continuing to, you know, listen to our customers, improve the client experience, but, you know, we don't share specifics.

Right.

Thanks very much.

The next question is from Dan Weldon with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning. I have a question about innovation speed.

If I look at slide eight from this morning, you've got 15 new announcements or launches. And I go back a few quarters, and that was more like single digits. So, am I right to think that the cadence is increasing here? And you've historically framed, like, 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?

Certainly. It has been a busy year for product launches. You're correct in that. You know, we've had 368 new products here to date. And that is in addition to advances, right, that we're making in our execution technology where, you know, we're looking to introduce things like Treasury Link. And these are things where, you know, 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, you know, launch these new products on both the institutional as well as the retail side. And that means, you know, a lot of partnership with our distribution networks as well as with our market data network to make that, you know, successful. So I think it proves that, you know, we can move quickly as well as, you know, we're the only TribeFi exchange that is offering 24 by 7 products. And that doesn't just happen because, you know, 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. Lynn, do you have anything to add?

Yeah, thanks, Julie. You know, Dan, to your question, I don't know if there's a, you know, 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, you know, when we do go to launch new products, it's typically in a space we're meeting that. 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 year's ahead. for two times, so I apologize.

I know you can. So welcome. I know you're a newer analyst to see me, so thank you for your question.

The next question comes from Bill Ketz with TD Cowan. Your line is open.

Okay, thank you. 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 bit 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 here, maybe buyback versus anything on the inorganic side.

Thank you.

Thanks, Bill, and it's a great question. I'll let Lynn start, and then I will chime in as well.

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 in a way that gives us a lot of optionality. That being said, we have tended over time to be a lot choosing 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, we're driving additional capital efficiencies for our – 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 – Add to what Lynn said, Bill.

I mean, we have been very disciplined, probably the lowest and most in our sector for sure and 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 CMA and how they like to have that capital returned to them, whether it's through buybacks, whether it's through the special, whether it's through the quarterly dividend. We are in a very, very strong position to do a lot of different things if we so choose. And, again, I think what Lynn said is right. We just don't go out kicking and shopping for things that we don't think we need. 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 Lynn 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 of our business, for some of the plug-and-play technology and other things.

And the next question is from Ken Worthington with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning, everybody. I wanted to ask about the trends in open interest and how you see the 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 three QIs 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?

So, I am very much of the mindset 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 the 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 in short-term basis like we do today. We didn't have weekly options expirations. We had quarterly options expirations, semi-quarterlies, and 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 of years ago. So that's why you're seeing the numbers that you decided 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, you know, a monthly or a quarterly basis. That's the big difference.

Great. Thank you.

Thanks, Ken.

And the next question is from Ben Abudish with Barclays. Your line is open.

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 sort of potential size of the market that you're thinking about going after and the economic model? Is this simply collateral balances and broker tech revenues or what else should we be thinking about there? Thank you.

Yeah, 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 Treasury Link stuff, so I'll let Mike go ahead and touch on it. Yeah, no, thanks, Jerry.

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 Treasury Link, you know, it's an industry first Treasury functionality that will enable transparent centralized spread trading between Treasury futures and broker tech cash treasuries on CME Globex. This new offering really connects to two leading U.S. Treasury liquidity pools, bringing unique innovation, and it will enable guaranteed execution of anybody trading cash versus user spread transactions and it will eliminate lagging risk in the process. Happy to say that over the weekend, Treasury Link 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 Treasury Link, you know, really just represents the next stage and, you know, an initiative to bring our cash and futures markets closer together. You know, we're looking at, you know, aside from Treasuries futures versus cash, you know, what are some other things that we can do to link products together? This is an evolving time in the Treasury landscape. You know, we have a new Fed chair who's committed to overalling their communication strategy. We continue to see record debt levels. We see Treasury intervention in our markets, and we're fastly 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.

Thanks, Ben. Thanks, Mike.

And the next question is from Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

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 it 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, of course, and do you think there's literally enough tools for them to do that now without the need for perpetuals?

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've made that comment, I made that a comment in reference to the leverage part of perpetuals that have been traded overseas. I made the comment when leverage was anywhere from 2550 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 think that's what you're referring to. As far as single stock futures, what was your question on that?

Just as a I guess two-parter there. Another tool obviously for retail to trade this and that's that's good to see um but also there um 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 or i'm just making that number up but something something very low would that change your view on the systemic risk risk of the product yeah right 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 will wait until I see what they are proposing to leverage caps or things of that nature but I've not seen anything so it's really difficult for me As it relates to the opportunity for retail on 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 to the institutional participants, and I think it's going to be well overdue. We have the last with the MAG-7, MAG-9, whatever you want to call it, people that have single-stock futures on some of these products, very attractive for both constituents.

Brian, it's really focused on just evolving our products to retail demand. And, you know, we saw, you know, we delivered on the retail business the 10th consecutive quarter of delquisition growth. We welcomed well over 100,000 new retail traders into our markets in this past quarter. And that was a 40% increase of where we were a year ago. We are doing that through this product innovation that we've talked about in this call. You know, we had a new record in our eNano suite yesterday of over 21,000 contracts traded. We spoke to the single stock futures success earlier, being available 24 by 7. You know, this is what our clients are demanding and working closely with our retail partner to continue to ramp, you know, those education and those marketing efforts through the remainder of the year. We believe, right, 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.

Thanks, Jill. Brian, hopefully that addresses some of your questions. And, again, I don't duck any questions, so hopefully that gives you some.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Great color. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Brian.

Appreciate your question.

The next question is from Ashish Sabhadra with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, guys. This is Will Chee on for Ashish Sabhadra. appreciate you guys squeezing this in. Maybe a quick question on the new launched NHL future sports indices and their corresponding futures instruments. Seems to be kind of an interesting position to step away from kind of the sports betting that you guys don't want to get involved in. It's kind of aligned with the IASCO framework for benchmarks. But with the early days, about a month in, what's the kind of early traction you've seen with that product? Is it coming from institutional demand? Is there any retail demand? What's the kind of, I guess, runway you expect for that?

That's a good question, Liam. 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 it. He oversees those businesses. Tim. Thanks, Terry, and thanks for the question.

I think what's interesting about this opportunity and partnering with Future Sports and trying to bring the industry and actually different in the sense of performance of the teams that, as you pointed out, are indexed. And when we look at building new risk management capabilities, one of the first things to do is then build the product institutional grade front, a billion dollars.

Good question, Tim. Thanks for your response.

The next question is from Michael Cypress with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

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 FICC cross-margining. And as you look at over the next couple of years, what newer initiatives do you think could be most meaningful to take that higher at, say, flat volumes? Thank you.

That's a good hire. I like that one, Mike. Go ahead, Mike.

Yeah, so it's really broad-based, which is what's important. So you're going to have 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 fixed cross-margining as well as the swap offsets in rates. But we're seeing growth in the asset.

Appreciate it, Lynn. 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 and our CME Fit Cross Margin Program now that FCM partners are taking advantage of the savings with cascading that down to client account. So if you look at portfolio margin 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 margining 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 fixed 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 FCM's 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 and 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 one, one-and-a-half number that we've talked about in the beginning of the year. So I just want to highlight where we've seen growth, particularly in the rates environment.

And 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.

Tim, maybe you can give a little color on that as well. 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, some two main things, delivered a little over $5 billion, is when we look at...

This question in the queue is from Simon Clinch with Rothschild & Co. Redburn, your line is open.

Hi, thanks for squeezing me in for a follow-up again. Terry, a bit of a sort of broader question here. As we think about the retail platforms and perhaps some FDMs eventually moving to explore launching products in their own right, be it prediction markets, perpetuals, or even other options, perhaps. But as that happens, how do you expect the relationship between CME and those partners 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.

Yeah, thanks, Simon, for the question. I'd be speculating at best, But when we just got done speaking about $100-plus billion 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's business is institutional-driven. So, again, I think when you're looking at what you're suggesting is platforms listing their own products, is that more attractive to coming to CME? You know, you need to have an ecosystem of liquidity from the biggest institutions in the world that are at CME, we've cited that through our open interest, that retail needs to participate with. Retail trading with just retail and crops 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 at CME, and I think they benefit immensely by being here at CME, 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 with a prop is a long-term proposition for a successful market. I have not seen one in my 46 years in the business.

That's great. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Simon. I appreciate it.

And showing no further questions, I will now turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

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.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at this time.