CME Group Q1 Earnings Call Highlights
by Teresa Graham · The Cerbat GemCME Group (NASDAQ:CME) opened 2026 with what executives repeatedly characterized as a record-setting first quarter, driven by broad-based increases in derivatives trading activity and continued growth in market data revenue. Management also highlighted a slate of initiatives spanning clearing efficiencies, tokenization and stablecoin exploration, a coming shift in certain equity options settlement, and ongoing efforts to expand retail access through prediction markets.
Record volumes across all asset classes
Chairman and CEO Terry Duffy said the company delivered “a record-breaking start to 2026,” with first quarter average daily volume (ADV) of 36.2 million contracts, up 22% from the prior year. Duffy said it was the highest quarterly ADV in CME’s history and “6 million contracts a day higher than any previous quarter.”
For the first time, CME posted simultaneous record volume in each of its six asset classes—rates, equities, energy, agricultural products, metals, and foreign exchange—according to Duffy. He said commodity sector volume rose 38% in aggregate and financial products volume increased 18%.
International activity was another focal point. Duffy said international ADV reached a record 11.4 million contracts, up 30% versus 2025, with EMEA, APAC, and Latin America each posting record highs. He added that international business also recorded all-time highs across all six asset classes at the same time.
Duffy also pointed to capital efficiency metrics, saying CME saved customers “an average of over $85 billion in margin per day.” Open interest ended the quarter up 11% year-over-year and up 19% since the start of 2026, he said, with U.S. Treasury open interest reaching an all-time high of 36.3 million contracts.
Financial results: revenue, margins, and shareholder returns
President and CFO Lynne Fitzpatrick reported clearing and transaction fee revenue increased 15% year-over-year, with an average rate per contract of $0.652. Fitzpatrick said CME’s volume-tiered pricing “results in decreasing rate per contract at higher levels of volume,” and she framed the structure as encouraging incremental trading while generating “highly profitable incremental volume.” The combination of volume growth and pricing drove a $205 million increase in clearing and transaction fees during the quarter, she said.
Market data revenue rose 15% to a record $224 million, marking “32 consecutive quarters of year-over-year market data revenue growth,” Fitzpatrick said. Total revenue for the quarter was a record $1.9 billion, up 14% from the first quarter of 2025.
Fitzpatrick said adjusted expenses were $512 million, or $405 million excluding license fees. Adjusted operating income was $1.4 billion, and the adjusted operating margin reached 72.8%, which she called the highest in the company’s history. Adjusted net income was a record $1.2 billion and adjusted diluted EPS was $3.36, up 20% year-over-year.
CME returned $3.2 billion to shareholders during the quarter through $2.7 billion in variable and regular dividends and $536 million in share repurchases, Fitzpatrick said.
Clearing and collateral: cross-margining expansion, tokenization, and stablecoin exploration
In prepared remarks, Duffy said the company received SEC and CFTC approval for CME and the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC) cross-margining agreements to expand to end-user clients beginning April 30.
Asked about collateral mobility and tokenization, COO and Global Head of Clearing Suzanne Sprague said CME is working with FICC and on internal tokenization efforts, emphasizing potential “benefit for the industry to be able to reduce friction in moving collateral,” particularly for assets that do not settle same day. She also cited “tokenization of cash and our partnership with Google,” as well as evaluating other assets that could help “free up liquidity.”
Duffy added that the company is “looking at potentially our own stablecoin,” describing a focus on expanding margin and capital efficiencies in moving money “back and forth each and every day.”
On the Google partnership, Sprague said CME is working with settlement banks and clearing members to advance cash tokenization and referenced a recent Bank of Montreal announcement about participating with CME and Google. She said the goal is to expand testing with settlement banks and integrate clearing members this year, with an aim “to go live by the end of this year.” Sprague said tokenized cash would support movement of value outside traditional banking hours, which she tied to CME’s planned expansion of trading availability.
Sprague said CME is progressing stablecoin efforts through regulatory engagement, exploring technology partners, and “looking to be able to seek a license to be able to issue stablecoin,” while noting she could not “opine on the regulatory engagement timeline.”
In a later question on the end-user cross-margining expansion, Sprague said CME expects savings “upward of 80% for the client books,” similar to what it has seen in the house program. She said 22 clearing members have signed agreements for the house program, and CME already has one clearing member signed for the customer program as it approaches go-live. When asked about the house program, Sprague said maximum savings have been about $1.5 billion and average daily savings have been “just over $1 billion.”
Retail access and market data: simulation growth and prediction markets
Chief Commercial Officer Julie Winkler said market data growth was supported by “a surge in the simulated trading environment,” with strong participation among new traders learning futures. She said CME views that participation as additive to the long-term retail ecosystem. Winkler also cited policy changes around data feed licensing and said professional subscriber growth remained positive, up about 1% from the fourth quarter and up about 2.45% from a year earlier. Fitzpatrick added that CME was pleased with broad-based market data growth spanning subscriber growth, new products, and pricing changes.
Management also provided updates on CME’s prediction markets and event contracts offering. Tim McCourt, Senior Managing Director and Global Head of Equities, FX, and Alternative Products, said that since launch in December, CME has surpassed “the 220 million contract mark” in volume. He said after a marketing effort began in mid-March with FanDuel, the share of volume in markets-based event contracts across equities, crypto, energy, and metals “has actually exceeded 30%.” McCourt said more than 150,000 new accounts have traded these products since December.
Duffy emphasized that when CME negotiated its arrangement with FanDuel, the company’s goal “had nothing to do with sports,” but rather “markets and distribution,” adding that CME accommodated sports because FanDuel wanted to include it.
Responding to questions about FanDuel’s separate announcement about launching a new FCM, Fitzpatrick said it is important to distinguish “an application and a launch,” and that the move does not signify a change in the partnership. She added that contractual restrictions limit operating alternative venues during the partnership, and Duffy said FanDuel could not apply for or buy an FCM and then compete with the JV without violating contractual terms.
Product and platform developments: equities settlement, energy benchmarks, BrokerTec Chicago, and cloud migration
Duffy said CME plans to file to change Micro Equity Index options to be financially settled. He explained that the Micro client base is “more of a retail focus” and generally does not want options delivered into futures, while larger institutional users may prefer deliverable structures. McCourt said customers using Micro-sized products prefer financially settled mechanisms so options can expire against the futures’ daily settlement price, and he argued the change could help remove barriers to entry and support broader complex growth.
In energy, Senior Managing Director and Global Head of Commodities Markets Derek Sammann described continued efforts to position WTI as a global benchmark, citing export flows since the 2014 lifting of the export ban and increased global reliance on U.S.-produced energy products. Sammann pointed to record volume and open interest in crude grade contracts as supporting WTI’s role in exporting and risk management. He also said CME has seen WTI futures and options market share increase “north of 79%, 80%” in recent months as liquidity retrenches to core markets during stress.
On energy pricing dynamics, Fitzpatrick attributed a decline in energy rate per contract to volume tiering, a mix shift toward crude (lower-priced than natural gas), significant growth in Micro energy products (about 315,000 contracts per day in Q1 versus about 80,000 a year earlier, priced around $0.52 per contract), and a shift toward more member trading.
In fixed income, Mike Dennis, Senior Managing Director and Global Head of Fixed Income, said adoption of BrokerTec Chicago is expanding, supported by smaller tick sizes and co-location alongside CME’s Aurora futures and options markets. He said more than 35 clients are connected, March ADV grew 93% month-over-month, and the platform saw a record day of $1.2 billion on April 8.
Management also discussed cloud initiatives. Duffy said CME is starting with “less latency-sensitive products,” specifically agricultural contracts, and he expressed a long-term goal of moving “every single product” to the cloud, contingent on Google’s technology and facilities outperforming CME’s current setup. Fitzpatrick said CME’s Dallas facility is on track to open this summer as a testing environment, ahead of migrating two agricultural products to the cloud by year-end.
Fitzpatrick also noted that Google’s preferred shares converted into common shares during the quarter, explaining that the preferred shares were similar to common stock but without voting rights, and said investors will see the impact reflected in basic and diluted share count going forward.
About CME Group (NASDAQ:CME)
CME Group Inc is a global markets company that operates some of the world’s largest and most liquid derivatives exchanges, including the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and COMEX. The firm offers futures and options contracts across a broad range of asset classes — including interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities and metals — and serves a diverse client base of institutional investors, commercial hedgers, brokers and retail participants.
The company’s core services include electronic trading on the CME Globex platform, central clearing through CME Clearing, and distribution of market data, indexes and analytics.