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Arizona State Retirement System lifted its holdings in CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME – Free Report) by 1.9% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 100,671 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,874 shares during the period. Arizona State Retirement System’s holdings in CME Group were worth $22,231,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Northwestern Mutual Investment Management Company LLC lifted its stake in shares of CME Group by 0.3% in the 4th quarter. Northwestern Mutual Investment Management Company LLC now owns 11,523 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $3,147,000 after purchasing an additional 37 shares during the last quarter. Rehmann Capital Advisory Group lifted its holdings in shares of CME Group by 4.3% in the 3rd quarter. Rehmann Capital Advisory Group now owns 898 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $243,000 after acquiring an additional 37 shares during the last quarter. Endowment Wealth Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of CME Group by 4.4% in the 4th quarter. Endowment Wealth Management Inc. now owns 895 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $244,000 after acquiring an additional 38 shares during the last quarter. NBT Bank N A NY boosted its stake in shares of CME Group by 2.3% during the 1st quarter. NBT Bank N A NY now owns 1,666 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $492,000 after purchasing an additional 38 shares during the period. Finally, Resonant Capital Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of CME Group by 3.8% during the 1st quarter. Resonant Capital Advisors LLC now owns 1,073 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $317,000 after purchasing an additional 39 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.75% of the company’s stock.

CME Group Stock Down 1.1% Shares of NASDAQ CME opened at $278.23 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.02, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13. The stock has a market capitalization of $100.05 billion, a PE ratio of 23.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.32 and a beta of 0.24. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $261.16 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $277.88. CME Group Inc. has a 12-month low of $218.31 and a 12-month high of $329.16.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME – Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $2.99 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.91 by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $1.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.68 billion. CME Group had a return on equity of 15.60% and a net margin of 63.30%.The business’s revenue for the quarter was up .8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.96 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that CME Group Inc. will post 12.27 EPS for the current fiscal year. CME Group Dividend Announcement The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 25th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, September 9th will be paid a $1.30 dividend. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, September 9th. CME Group’s payout ratio is 44.11%.

Insider Buying and Selling In other news, Director William Shepard acquired 325 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, June 25th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $230.57 per share, with a total value of $74,935.25. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 260,442 shares in the company, valued at approximately $60,050,111.94. This represents a 0.12% increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 0.30% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes A number of analysts recently weighed in on CME shares. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on shares of CME Group from $324.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 23rd. Piper Sandler reduced their price target on CME Group from $329.00 to $295.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 15th. Weiss Ratings lowered CME Group from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 11th. Erste Group Bank cut CME Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, June 5th. Finally, Rothschild & Co Redburn raised CME Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $316.00 to $323.00 in a research report on Thursday, June 11th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, CME Group has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $289.75.

Read Our Latest Research Report on CME Group

CME Group Company Profile (Free Report)

CME Group Inc operates global derivatives marketplaces that provide trading, clearing and settlement services for a broad range of financial and commodity products. Its exchange platforms enable participants to manage risk, discover prices and gain exposure to asset classes including interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, metals, agricultural commodities and digital assets.

The company’s principal marketplaces include CME, CBOT, NYMEX and COMEX. Products are offered through futures and options contracts, with electronic trading available through CME Globex as well as exchange-based and privately negotiated transactions.

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, /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, and the European Energy Exchange, the world's leading exchange for power and European energy, today announced an agreement for EEX to transition its European dairy business to CME Group, already home to the dairy risk management industry in the U.S.

Under the terms of the agreement, EEX intends to phase out its dairy business and support the transition of its suite of indices underpinning existing futures contracts to CME Group before the end of 2027. The transaction, which includes the European butter and skimmed milk powder indices, will mark CME Group's entry into the European dairy market, with plans to launch its own European dairy indices, futures and options in the near future.

"The European dairy market is one of largest in the world, and the addition of European dairy futures and options will allow CME Group to build on record activity in our U.S. dairy franchise and offer clients access to a truly global market in one venue," said Derek Sammann, Senior Managing Director & Global Head of Commodities Markets, CME Group. "As the global population grows, dairy is becoming an increasingly important protein source for diets around the world. With U.S. dairy volumes increasing 73% over the past five years, expanding into Europe is the natural next step in helping producers and consumers access capital efficiencies and manage regional price risk."   

"We are proud of the leading European market for dairy derivatives that we built over the years together with our customers. With our renewed focus on core markets and related growth areas, we are delighted to have CME Group as our successor, bringing additional growth opportunities for the dairy community. We are committed to supporting CME Group and market participants with a smooth transition," said Tobias Paulun, Chief Executive Officer of EEX. "This will allow us to focus on our wider energy market offering and our drive to support the energy transition."

Dairy futures trading at EEX will remain available for the respective listed maturities, and there won't be any immediate changes to the setup of the pan-European butter and WECI indices.

The European Union accounts for roughly 20% of cow's milk production and more than 30% of nonfat dry milk exports globally, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Service. Much of that market remains unhedged.

Open interest in CME Group's dairy market climbed to a record 434,071 contracts on September 1, 2026.

The transaction is subject to pending closing conditions. For more information on CME Group dairy markets, please visit here.

As the world's leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, cryptocurrencies, energy, agricultural products and metals.  The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform.  In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing. 

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc.  NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.  COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec is a trademark of BrokerTec Americas LLC and EBS is a trademark of EBS Group LTD. The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC ("S&P DJI"). "S&P®", "S&P 500®", "SPY®", "SPX®", US 500 and The 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC; Dow Jones®, DJIA® and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored, endorsed, marketed, or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 

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SOURCE CME Group

, /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group Inc. will announce earnings for the third quarter of 2026 before the markets open on Wednesday, October 21, 2026. Written highlights for the quarter will be posted on the company's website at 6:00 a.m. Central Time, the same time it provides its earnings press release. The company will also hold an investor conference call that day at 7:30 a.m. Central Time, at which time company executives will take analysts' questions.  

A live audio Webcast of the conference call will be available on the Investor Relations section of the company's website. Following the conference call, an archived recording will be available at the same site. Those wishing to listen to the live conference via telephone should dial 877-918-3040 if calling from within the United States, or +1 312-470-7282 if calling from outside the United States, at least 10 minutes before the call begins. The participant passcode for both telephone numbers is 1944793.

As the world's leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, cryptocurrencies, energy, agricultural products and metals.  The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform.  In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing. 

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc.  NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.  COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec is a trademark of BrokerTec Americas LLC and EBS is a trademark of EBS Group LTD. The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC ("S&P DJI"). "S&P®", "S&P 500®", "SPY®", "SPX®", US 500 and The 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC; Dow Jones®, DJIA® and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored, endorsed, marketed, or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 

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SOURCE CME Group

U.S. Treasury ADV up 15% from last August Metals ADV grew 48% , /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today reported its second-highest August average daily volume (ADV) on record at 29.7 million contracts, an increase of 6% from August 2025. Market statistics are available in greater detail at https://cmegroupinc.gcs-web.com/monthly-volume.

August 2026 ADV across asset classes includes:

Interest Rate ADV of 16.7 million contracts Equity Index ADV of 6.8 million contracts Energy ADV of 2.3 million contracts Agricultural ADV of 2.2 million contracts Metals ADV of 1 million contracts Foreign Exchange ADV of 730,000 contracts Cryptocurrency ADV of 175,000 contracts ($12 billion notional) Additional August 2026 product highlights compared to August 2025:

Interest Rate ADV increased 3% U.S Treasury futures and options ADV increased 15% to 11.8 million contracts Record Ultra U.S. Treasury Bond futures ADV of 791,000 contracts 10-Year U.S. Treasury Note futures ADV increased 20% to 3.1 million contracts 2-Year U.S. Treasury Note futures ADV increased 25% to 1.9 million contracts 30-Year U.S. Treasury Bond futures ADV increased 37% to 852,000 contracts Equity Index ADV increased 7% Micro E-Mini Nasdaq-100 futures ADV increased 78% to 2.4 million contracts Energy ADV increased 3% Micro WTI Crude Oil futures ADV increased 189% to 152,000 contracts Agricultural ADV increased 12% Record Chicago SRW Wheat futures ADV of 216,000 contracts Record KC HRW Wheat futures ADV of 109,000 contracts Corn futures ADV increased 36% to 602,000 contracts Metals ADV increased 48% Micro Gold futures ADV increased 81% to 345,000 contracts Micro Silver futures ADV increased 286% to 63,000 contracts International ADV increased 10% to 8.6 million contracts, with EMEA ADV up 9% to 6.3 million contracts and APAC ADV up 12% to 1.9 million contracts Micro Products ADV Micro E-mini Equity Index futures and options ADV of 3.5 million contracts represented 51% of overall Equity Index ADV, Micro Energy futures accounted for  7% of overall Energy ADV and Micro Metals futures accounted for 52% of overall Metals ADV BrokerTec overall average daily notional value (ADNV) increased 16% to $1.059 trillion U.S. Repo ADNV increased 3% to $390 billion European Repo ADNV increased 27% to €356 billion U.S Treasury ADNV increased 2% to $84 billion Customer average collateral balances to meet performance bond requirements for rolling 3-months ending July 2026 were $147 billion for cash collateral and $166 billion for non-cash collateral As the world's leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, cryptocurrencies, energy, agricultural products and metals.  The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform.  In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing. 

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc.  NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.  COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec is a trademark of BrokerTec Americas LLC and EBS is a trademark of EBS Group LTD. The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC ("S&P DJI"). "S&P®", "S&P 500®", "SPY®", "SPX®", US 500 and The 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC; Dow Jones®, DJIA® and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored, endorsed, marketed, or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 

cmegroup.com/media-room.html

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SOURCE CME Group

, /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today announced that registration for the 23rd annual CME Group University Trading Challenge, which will be held from October 4 to October 30, is now open for interested university students around the world.

The CME Group University Trading Challenge is a hands-on educational experience for undergraduate and graduate students. Teams, led by students or faculty advisors, take on a range of marketplace risks as they work to protect their mock investment portfolios.

Using a simulated, professional-grade trading platform from CQG, teams step into the day-to-day realities of running an investment portfolio–facing the same pressures and possibilities real traders encounter. To sharpen their edge, students can draw on a rich set of available resources, from market data and news to live updates via the Dow Jones newsfeed and The Hightower Report. It all comes together as a real-time test of their ability to read and respond to shifting market dynamics. 

"We're excited to launch this year's Trading Challenge, a program that continues to inspire and equip the next generation of traders worldwide," said Anita Liskey, Global Head of Brand Marketing and Communications at CME Group. "For more than two decades, this one-of-a-kind competition has drawn more than 40,000 participants. We are so pleased to offer students real-world practice in managing risk and seizing opportunities through futures trading."

The deadline for registration for this year's competition is 5:00 p.m. CT on September 29, 2026.

Last year, participation reached a record 615 teams, including approximately 1,800 students from 174 universities across 25 countries. The 2025 winning team came from Universidad de Monterrey in Mexico.

CME Group is committed to educating the next generation of finance professionals on the significance of global derivatives markets and risk management. In addition to interactive events, like the University Trading Challenge, CME Group partners with other industry organizations to offer educational tools, such as Futures Fundamentals, a one-stop educational resource that explains the role of futures markets in everyday life. The goal of the site is to make financial education an engaging experience for anyone, regardless of how well versed they are in the world of finance.

For more information on the CME Group University Trading Challenge, visit https://www.cmegroup.com/events/university-trading-challenge/2026-trading-challenge.html. 

As the world's leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, cryptocurrencies, energy, agricultural products and metals. The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform. In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing. 

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc. NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec is a trademark of BrokerTec Americas LLC and EBS is a trademark of EBS Group LTD. The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC ("S&P DJI"). "S&P®", "S&P 500®", "SPY®", "SPX®", US 500 and The 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC; Dow Jones®, DJIA® and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored, endorsed, marketed, or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 

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SOURCE CME Group

Craig Bewick, global head of retail education at CME Group, discusses the lessons learned from CME's prior single stock futures launch and how it aims for this one to be much more successful. He says now is "the right time" for these products due to the growing impact single stock moves have on the stock market.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME – Get Free Report) and KKR & Co. Inc. (NYSE:KKR – Get Free Report) are both large-cap finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations, risk, earnings and institutional ownership.

Profitability This table compares CME Group and KKR & Co. Inc.’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets CME Group 63.30% 15.60% 2.20% KKR & Co. Inc. 14.41% 5.88% 1.07% Volatility & Risk CME Group has a beta of 0.23, indicating that its stock price is 77% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, KKR & Co. Inc. has a beta of 1.78, indicating that its stock price is 78% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings This is a breakdown of current ratings for CME Group and KKR & Co. Inc., as reported by MarketBeat. Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score CME Group 3 6 9 0 2.33 KKR & Co. Inc. 0 3 12 0 2.80 CME Group presently has a consensus price target of $288.56, indicating a potential upside of 2.70%. KKR & Co. Inc. has a consensus price target of $127.75, indicating a potential upside of 17.63%. Given KKR & Co. Inc.’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe KKR & Co. Inc. is more favorable than CME Group.

Earnings and Valuation This table compares CME Group and KKR & Co. Inc.”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio CME Group $6.52 billion 15.49 $4.07 billion $11.79 23.83 KKR & Co. Inc. $21.06 billion 4.63 $2.37 billion $3.14 34.59 CME Group has higher earnings, but lower revenue than KKR & Co. Inc.. CME Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than KKR & Co. Inc., indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional & Insider Ownership 87.7% of CME Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 76.3% of KKR & Co. Inc. shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of CME Group shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 23.2% of KKR & Co. Inc. shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Dividends CME Group pays an annual dividend of $5.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.9%. KKR & Co. Inc. pays an annual dividend of $0.78 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.7%. CME Group pays out 44.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. KKR & Co. Inc. pays out 24.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. KKR & Co. Inc. has increased its dividend for 5 consecutive years.

Summary KKR & Co. Inc. beats CME Group on 9 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About CME Group (Get Free Report)

CME Group Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates contract markets for the trading of futures and options on futures contracts worldwide. It offers futures and options products based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, agricultural commodities, energy, and metals, as well as fixed income and foreign currency trading services. The company also provides clearing house services, including clearing, settling, and guaranteeing futures and options contracts, and cleared swaps products traded through its exchanges; and trade processing and risk mitigation services. In addition, the company offers a range of market data services, including real-time and historical data services. It serves professional traders, financial institutions, institutional and individual investors, corporations, manufacturers, producers, governments, and central banks. The company was formerly known as Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. and changed its name to CME Group Inc. in July 2007. The company was founded in 1898 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

About KKR & Co. Inc. (Get Free Report)

KKR & Co., Inc. operates as an investment firm. It offers alternative asset management as well as capital markets and insurance solutions. The firm’s business segments include Asset Management and Insurance Business. The Asset Management segment engages in providing private equity, real assets, credit and liquid strategies, capital markets, and principal activities. The Insurance Business segment offers retirement, life insurance and reinsurance solutions to clients across individual and institutional markets. The company was founded by Henry Kravis, George R. Roberts, and Jerome Kholberg on May 1, 1976 and is headquartered in New York, NY.

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New Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh's job description doesn't mention anything about Social Security. But that doesn't mean that his moves can't impact the program that serves over 75 million Americans. Actually, what Warsh and his fellow Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members do can directly affect Social Security recipients.

Last week, Warsh delivered a highly anticipated speech at the Fed's annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. His comments raised new inflation concerns. Here's what that could mean for the 2027 Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA).

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh. Image source: Official Federal Reserve Photo.

What Warsh saidWarsh emphasized the importance of the Federal Reserve's role in keeping inflation at bay. He noted, "If the Fed gets inflation wrong and judges the economy wrong, who gets the worst of it? Not the financial highfliers. Hard-working Americans are the ones left to deal with inflation that is too high or jobs that suddenly appear less secure."

To make sure that no one missed his point, Warsh added later in his speech, "It is the Fed's job to deliver stable prices." And he referred to the latest inflation numbers as "concerning." The Fed's top inflation metric, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, increased 3.7% over the last 12 months and 4.1% over the last six months, well above the Fed's target of 2%. Of particular note, Warsh said that the "underlying trends" have not "meaningfully improved."

It isn't just a small number of products that are seeing prices rise. Warsh stated that 54% of the 199 individual components of the PCE had price increases of more than 3% over the past 12 months. The average over the two decades before the COVID-19 pandemic was 32%.

Although Warsh didn't specifically point out the impact that the Iran war is having on energy prices, he alluded to it. The Fed chair said, "The recent rise in commodity prices also bears watching. What we need to judge is whether trends indicate upside inflation risks."

The connection between Warsh's warning and the 2027 Social Security COLADid Warsh's speech at Jackson Hole mention Social Security? No, not even once. However, his warning about the underlying inflation trend is directly connected to the 2027 Social Security COLA.

Annual Social Security benefit increases are set based on inflation numbers. Specifically, the Social Security Administration (SSA) calculates the percentage difference between the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) for the third quarter of the current year and the same period in the previous year to determine the COLA amount for the next year.

When inflation is lower, the Social Security COLA is lower -- and vice versa. So when the Fed chair expresses concerns about persistent inflation, that's a pretty good hint that the next COLA could be higher.

To be sure, Warsh didn't directly warn that inflation would worsen. However, he didn't sound confident at all that inflation will decline going forward without Federal Reserve intervention. Unsurprisingly, the odds of a Fed rate hike (which would help lower inflation) have risen, with CME Group's (CME +1.73%) FedWatch putting the probability of a rate increase in the FOMC's September meeting at 56.9%.

Don't trust the downward revisions.But haven't experts' projections for the 2027 Social Security COLA fallen over the last month or two? Yes, but don't trust those downward revisions. They were based primarily on lower-than-expected inflation figures driven by declining oil prices. However, oil prices have since bounced back somewhat.

Additionally, tensions between the U.S. and Iran have intensified. The U.S. mounted military attacks on Iran last weekend for the first time in over a month. Iran responded by firing missiles at Jordan, an ally of the U.S.

Warsh was absolutely right in his speech last week that a rise in commodity prices "bears watching." You can bet that the Fed will be closely monitoring oil prices and their impact on overall inflation.

Social Security recipients might be interested in watching them, too: They could directly impact how much Social Security benefits rise next year. The 2027 COLA could very well be the highest increase in several years.

President Trump said this week that Hyperliquid, a crypto-native exchange built around perpetual futures, could be brought into compliance with US regulations. That single comment reopened a debate the industry has spent a year trying to settle. Perpetual futures, or perps, let a trader take 10x or 50x leverage on almost anything, with no expiration date, and the product is spreading from crypto into commodities, indexes, and single stocks.

CNBC’s Oliver Renick framed the scale on August 21. “Global perpetuals trading is pacing around 150 billion of notional per day. And that’s down from last year because crypto did so poorly. But the market is booming because perpetuals are shifting to commodities indexes like the S&P 500.”

The US-listed company sitting closest to this fight is CME Group (NASDAQ:CME | CME Price Prediction), the world’s largest derivatives exchange, with a market capitalization of roughly $98.9 billion. CEO Terry Duffy spent the summer arguing that perps are speculative instruments rather than hedging tools, while CME has told investors it stands ready to list them if clients demand it.

That gap between stated principle and commercial reality is the story worth understanding, because the classification decision now sitting at the CFTC will reshape what leverage looks like for ordinary US traders.

What a Perpetual Future Actually Is A dated futures contract has an expiration. You know the settlement date, the size, and the price at which you will be marked out if you hold to the end. That certainty lets a corporate hedger match a contract to a real exposure.

A perpetual future removes the expiration and replaces it with a funding-rate mechanism. Longs and shorts pay each other periodically to keep the contract’s price tethered to spot, which Duffy described as “highly engineered instruments that rely on frequent funding rate adjustments that revert the position back to the spot price.”

The second feature is automated liquidation. When a leveraged position drifts against the trader, the exchange closes it algorithmically to protect the clearing pool, and at 50x leverage the margin for error is extremely thin.

Duffy’s plainest description was that “while this product may be dubbed futures, they function more like leveraged spot products.” For a retail trader, that distinction matters, because the appeal marketed as “no expiration” hides a running funding cost and a liquidation trigger.

Duffy’s Warning and CME’s Own Contradiction On the July 22, 2026 earnings call, Duffy said 94% of volume in the first half of 2026 came from institutional customers, and those customers told him perps do not serve their risk-management needs.

He also acknowledged the commercial reality. CME has “the full technical and operational capabilities to launch perpetual futures” and has drafted contract specifications. Renick captured the tension: “These products treat ten x, 50x leverage like a volume toggle, and critics like CME’s Terry Duffy argue that confines perps to speculative instruments, not hedging tools.”

CME is launching single-stock futures financially settled to the closing print, starting with the 22 biggest names, and Julie Winkler said retail brokers view it as “the single biggest retail growth catalyst of the year.”

The stock has responded to the strategic pivot. CME is up 10.33% over the past month and closed Friday at $274.98, with the sell-side target sitting near $283.07.

Swaps or Futures Is the Whole Ballgame Renick’s most important line was the quiet one. “The difference between swaps and futures is huge, and there’s a bit of irony here that despite the growth of this sector, that we’re still debating on what to call it. Because if it is indeed swaps, that’s going to change the collateral requirements by exchanges in a very big way.”

Collateral is where consumer protection actually lives. Duffy argued that under Dodd-Frank, any product where two parties exchange funding payments “is a swap contract”, and swaps “need to be margined for five days” rather than the one-day standard for cleared futures.

A five-day margin requirement effectively prices 50x retail leverage out of existence, which is why the classification fight is the whole ballgame. Duffy warned that an equity perp structured like today’s crypto perps could create “a systemic issue for the marketplace” if cascading auto-liquidations hit both sides simultaneously. Retail traders drawn to that kind of leverage can still play, but the sizing and exit rules matter more than the entry, which is the whole subject of our free speculation playbook.

The realistic outcome is that the CFTC eventually classifies most perp designs as swaps for margining purposes, which would push US-compliant versions toward lower leverage caps and drive listing rights to established venues like CME under its index licenses. Watch the CFTC docket, watch whether a major US exchange files a perpetual contract under 40.2 self-certification, and read CME’s Q2 8-K for whether Duffy’s tone shifts from warning to filing.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

A month has gone by since the last earnings report for CME Group (CME - Free Report) . Shares have added about 6.5% in that time frame, outperforming the S&P 500.

But investors have to be wondering, will the recent positive trend continue leading up to its next earnings release, or is CME due for a pullback? Well, first let's take a quick look at its latest earnings report in order to get a better handle on the recent drivers for CME Group Inc. before we dive into how investors and analysts have reacted as of late.

CME Q2 Earnings Beat Estimates on Record Market Data Growth

CME Group's second-quarter 2026 adjusted earnings of $2.99 per share beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.91 by 2.7%. The bottom line increased 1% from the year-ago quarter. Revenues of $1.70 billion surpassed the consensus estimate of $1.68 billion by 1.2% and rose 1% year over year.

The quarter benefited from record market data revenues and resilient trading activity, with average daily volume reaching 29.8 million contracts, the third-highest quarterly level in the company's history.

CME’s Revenue Growth Supported by Market DataRevenue growth was driven by record market data and information services revenues, which rose 20% year over year to $238.1 million. Clearing and transaction fee revenues totaled $1.35 billion, while total revenues increased to $1.71 billion from $1.69 billion in the prior-year quarter.

The company also generated $115.6 million in other revenues, which grew 9.2% year over year. Total average rate per contract improved to 67.8 cents from 65.2 cents in the first quarter of 2026, reflecting lower volume tiering and a lower member mix.

CME Group Trading Activity Remains RobustTrading activity remained strong despite lapping a record second quarter of 2025. Average daily volume totaled 29.8 million contracts, representing the company's third-highest quarterly ADV.

Financial products averaged 24.2 million contracts daily, while commodities averaged 5.7 million. Equity Index ADV increased 13% year over year to 8.6 million contracts, Agricultural products ADV rose 6% to a record quarterly level of 2.1 million, and Metals ADV advanced 5% to 865,000 contracts. Non-U.S. ADV reached 9.1 million contracts, marking the third-highest international quarterly volume in the company's history.

CME Expenses Rise as Profitability Stays SolidTotal expenses increased to $599.1 million from $562.7 million in the year-ago quarter. Operating income was $1.11 billion compared with $1.13 billion a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, operating expenses were $521.2 million and adjusted operating income totaled $1.19 billion. Adjusted operating margin remained strong at 69.5%, while adjusted net income increased 1% year over year to $1.08 billion.

CME’s Innovation Expands Product PortfolioCME continued to broaden its product lineup during the quarter. The company commenced 24/7 trading for its cryptocurrency futures suite and announced that 1-Ounce Gold futures would also begin trading around the clock.

Management also unveiled plans to launch Single Stock futures during the third quarter of 2026, introduce Compute futures later this year, roll out Treasury Link in the fourth quarter and expand CME Securities Clearing. These initiatives are intended to broaden the customer base and strengthen risk-management capabilities across asset classes.

CME’s Balance Sheet and 2026 OutlookCME ended the quarter with approximately $2.3 billion in cash and $3.4 billion of debt. During the quarter, the company paid regular dividends of approximately $468 million and repurchased $695 million of common shares.

Management expects full-year adjusted operating expenses, excluding license fees, of approximately $1.695 billion and capital expenditures, net of leasehold improvement allowances, of roughly $85 million. The adjusted effective tax rate is projected to be at the low end of the previously communicated 23.5-24.5% range. July trading activity has remained strong, with average daily volume trending toward the highest July in company history.

How Have Estimates Been Moving Since Then?In the past month, investors have witnessed a downward trend in estimates review.

VGM ScoresAt this time, CME has a poor Growth Score of F, a score with the same score on the momentum front. Charting a somewhat similar path, the stock has a score of D on the value side, putting it in the bottom 40% for this investment strategy.

Overall, the stock has an aggregate VGM Score of F. If you aren't focused on one strategy, this score is the one you should be interested in.

OutlookEstimates have been broadly trending downward for the stock, and the magnitude of these revisions looks promising. Notably, CME has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). We expect an in-line return from the stock in the next few months.

Advisors Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME – Free Report) during the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 117,191 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $25,879,000.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of CME. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in CME Group by 1.7% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 35,895,583 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $9,802,366,000 after buying an additional 588,509 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in shares of CME Group in the 2nd quarter valued at about $6,749,965,000. State Street Corp raised its position in shares of CME Group by 0.4% during the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 16,144,525 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $4,408,747,000 after acquiring an additional 56,725 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of CME Group during the 4th quarter worth about $1,523,241,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its stake in CME Group by 2.8% during the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 4,924,475 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,344,776,000 after purchasing an additional 134,242 shares during the last quarter. 87.75% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. UBS Group lowered their price target on CME Group from $310.00 to $260.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, July 6th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded shares of CME Group from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $305.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut shares of CME Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and reduced their price target for the company from $286.00 to $270.00 in a research report on Wednesday. Wall Street Zen lowered CME Group from a “sell” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Saturday, August 1st. Finally, Barclays cut their target price on CME Group from $316.00 to $270.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, July 9th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, CME Group currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $288.56.

Get Our Latest Stock Report on CME Group Insiders Place Their Bets In other CME Group news, Director William R. Shepard bought 325 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 25th. The shares were bought at an average price of $230.57 per share, for a total transaction of $74,935.25. Following the transaction, the director owned 260,442 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $60,050,111.94. This trade represents a 0.12% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Corporate insiders own 0.30% of the company’s stock.

CME Group Trading Up 1.5% NASDAQ CME opened at $270.87 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $251.06 and its two-hundred day moving average is $279.68. CME Group Inc. has a one year low of $218.31 and a one year high of $329.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a current ratio of 1.02. The firm has a market cap of $97.40 billion, a PE ratio of 22.97, a P/E/G ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 0.23.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME – Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $2.99 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.91 by $0.08. The company had revenue of $1.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.68 billion. CME Group had a return on equity of 15.60% and a net margin of 63.30%.The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up .8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $2.96 EPS. Analysts expect that CME Group Inc. will post 12.27 earnings per share for the current year.

CME Group Dividend Announcement The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 25th. Investors of record on Wednesday, September 9th will be given a $1.30 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, September 9th. This represents a $5.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.9%. CME Group’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 44.11%.

CME Group Company Profile (Free Report)

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.

See Also Five stocks we like better than CME Group 3 Energy Stocks Raising Dividends as the Sector Surges 5 Reasons the S&P 500 Could Keep Rallying Through Year-End Walmart’s Post-Earnings Drop Could Be a Buying Opportunity The Trade Desk’s Earnings Miss Raises a Bigger Question About Its AI Future

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Asahi Life Asset Management CO. LTD. purchased a new stake in shares of CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME – Free Report) during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 2,075 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $458,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of CME Group by 1.7% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 35,895,583 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $9,802,366,000 after buying an additional 588,509 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new position in CME Group in the second quarter worth approximately $6,749,965,000. State Street Corp raised its position in CME Group by 0.4% during the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 16,144,525 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $4,408,747,000 after acquiring an additional 56,725 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in CME Group during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,523,241,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its stake in CME Group by 2.8% in the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 4,924,475 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $1,344,776,000 after acquiring an additional 134,242 shares during the last quarter. 87.75% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling In other news, Director William R. Shepard bought 325 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 25th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $230.57 per share, with a total value of $74,935.25. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 260,442 shares in the company, valued at approximately $60,050,111.94. The trade was a 0.12% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.30% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

CME Group Trading Down 1.7% Shares of CME stock opened at $266.94 on Thursday. CME Group Inc. has a 12 month low of $218.31 and a 12 month high of $329.16. The company has a quick ratio of 1.02, a current ratio of 1.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13. The business’s 50 day moving average is $250.89 and its two-hundred day moving average is $279.81. The company has a market cap of $95.99 billion, a PE ratio of 22.64, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.16 and a beta of 0.23. CME Group (NASDAQ:CME – Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $2.99 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.91 by $0.08. The company had revenue of $1.71 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.68 billion. CME Group had a net margin of 63.30% and a return on equity of 15.60%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up .8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.96 earnings per share. Equities analysts predict that CME Group Inc. will post 12.27 EPS for the current year.

CME Group Announces Dividend The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 25th. Investors of record on Wednesday, September 9th will be issued a $1.30 dividend. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, September 9th. CME Group’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 44.11%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several research firms have commented on CME. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of CME Group from $324.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 23rd. Barclays cut their price target on shares of CME Group from $316.00 to $270.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, July 9th. Rothschild & Co Redburn raised shares of CME Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $316.00 to $323.00 in a research note on Thursday, June 11th. Piper Sandler decreased their price objective on shares of CME Group from $329.00 to $295.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, July 15th. Finally, Erste Group Bank downgraded shares of CME Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, June 5th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $288.56.

Check Out Our Latest Research Report on CME Group

About CME Group (Free Report)

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.

See Also Five stocks we like better than CME Group Bloom Energy’s AI Surge Meets a Valuation Reality Check Target Is Winning Shoppers Back—Can the Rally Reach $180? IonQ’s Space Contract Points to a New Frontier for Quantum Investors Is Apple’s AI Strategy Smarter Than Skeptics Think? Want to see what other hedge funds are holding CME? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME – Free Report).

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CME Group (NASDAQ:CME – Get Free Report) and CHECU (NASDAQ:CHECU – Get Free Report) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, dividends and risk.

Valuation and Earnings This table compares CME Group and CHECU”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio CME Group $6.52 billion 14.97 $4.07 billion $11.79 23.03 CHECU N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A CME Group has higher revenue and earnings than CHECU. Profitability This table compares CME Group and CHECU’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets CME Group 63.30% 15.60% 2.20% CHECU N/A N/A N/A Analyst Recommendations This is a summary of current ratings for CME Group and CHECU, as reported by MarketBeat.

Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score CME Group 3 5 10 0 2.39 CHECU 0 0 0 0 0.00 CME Group currently has a consensus price target of $291.81, suggesting a potential upside of 7.47%. Given CME Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe CME Group is more favorable than CHECU.

Insider & Institutional Ownership 87.7% of CME Group shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of CME Group shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary CME Group beats CHECU on 9 of the 9 factors compared between the two stocks.

About CME Group (Get Free Report)

CME Group Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates contract markets for the trading of futures and options on futures contracts worldwide. It offers futures and options products based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, agricultural commodities, energy, and metals, as well as fixed income and foreign currency trading services. The company also provides clearing house services, including clearing, settling, and guaranteeing futures and options contracts, and cleared swaps products traded through its exchanges; and trade processing and risk mitigation services. In addition, the company offers a range of market data services, including real-time and historical data services. It serves professional traders, financial institutions, institutional and individual investors, corporations, manufacturers, producers, governments, and central banks. The company was formerly known as Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. and changed its name to CME Group Inc. in July 2007. The company was founded in 1898 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

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BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME – Free Report) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor acquired 30,566,342 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $6,749,965,000. BlackRock Inc. owned about 8.50% of CME Group at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Asset Dedication LLC increased its stake in shares of CME Group by 64.9% during the fourth quarter. Asset Dedication LLC now owns 94 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 37 shares during the period. Whipplewood Advisors LLC lifted its stake in CME Group by 2,075.0% in the first quarter. Whipplewood Advisors LLC now owns 87 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 83 shares during the period. Elkhorn Partners Limited Partnership bought a new stake in CME Group in the fourth quarter valued at $27,000. Hilton Head Capital Partners LLC purchased a new position in CME Group during the 4th quarter valued at $28,000. Finally, Legacy Wealth Managment LLC ID increased its position in CME Group by 191.9% during the 4th quarter. Legacy Wealth Managment LLC ID now owns 108 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 71 shares during the period. 87.75% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

CME Group Price Performance Shares of NASDAQ CME opened at $267.88 on Tuesday. CME Group Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $218.31 and a fifty-two week high of $329.16. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $250.51 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $280.07. The company has a market capitalization of $96.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.72, a P/E/G ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 0.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a current ratio of 1.02.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $2.99 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.91 by $0.08. CME Group had a return on equity of 15.60% and a net margin of 63.30%.The company had revenue of $1.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.68 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.96 earnings per share. CME Group’s revenue was up .8% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that CME Group Inc. will post 12.27 EPS for the current fiscal year. CME Group Dividend Announcement The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 25th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, September 9th will be given a dividend of $1.30 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, September 9th. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.9%. CME Group’s dividend payout ratio is presently 44.11%.

Insider Buying and Selling at CME Group In other CME Group news, Director William R. Shepard acquired 325 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 25th. The shares were bought at an average price of $230.57 per share, with a total value of $74,935.25. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director owned 260,442 shares in the company, valued at $60,050,111.94. This represents a 0.12% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.30% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several equities research analysts have recently commented on CME shares. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of CME Group from $324.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 23rd. Bank of America boosted their price target on shares of CME Group from $226.00 to $230.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 23rd. UBS Group lowered their price objective on shares of CME Group from $310.00 to $260.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, July 6th. Piper Sandler cut their price objective on CME Group from $329.00 to $295.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, July 15th. Finally, Barclays cut their price objective on CME Group from $316.00 to $270.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, July 9th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, CME Group currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $291.81.

Check Out Our Latest Report on CME

About CME Group (Free Report)

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.

See Also Five stocks we like better than CME Group Commodities Are Booming, But These 3 ETFs Tell Different Stories 3 Active ETFs Making Big Moves in August This ETF Is Outperforming by Avoiding the S&P 500’s Biggest Problem Birkenstock Beats the Skeptics—But Not on EPS Want to see what other hedge funds are holding CME? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME – Free Report).

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CME Group is preparing to expand its 24/7 trading hours to include the 100-ounce silver futures contract, pending regulatory approval, following the recent launch of its around-the-clock one-ounce gold futures contract. Jin Hennig, CME Group Managing Director and Global Head of Metals, explained that strong retail demand and significant weekend trading volumes in gold futures, exceeding $200 million in notional value over recent weekends, have driven the decision to extend 24/7 trading to silver.

Leading derivatives trading marketplace CME Group (CME +1.10%) has had some of its most active months ever this summer. In June, it reported an average daily volume (ADV) of 30.6 million. That capped off its second-best second quarter ever, with an ADV of 29.8 million contracts.

That momentum has continued, as CME recorded its highest July average daily volume (ADV) on record, at 27 million contracts, up 23% from July 2025.

There is one constant in both June and July that likely pushed volume higher: Both months featured Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings. And at both the June and July FOMC meetings, there was considerable uncertainty from the Federal Reserve about the future path of interest rates.

Image source: Getty Images.

In June, the Fed voted 12-0 to hold rates steady. Still, the quarterly summary of projections indicated that the committee majority anticipates one rate hike by the end of 2026, bringing rates back up to 3.8%. Currently, they are in the 3.50%-3.75% range.

Then, at the July meeting, the Fed again voted not to change rates, but the vote was 9-3, with three members favoring a rate hike. It speaks to the growing unease about rates.

A record first half for CME Why is this good for CME? The company generates most of its revenue through transaction and clearing fees, so when ADV is higher, there are more transactions and thus, more fee income.

In the first half of 2026, CME saw record trading in Q1 and the second-highest Q2 totals ever. That led to record first-half 2026 revenue, adjusted operating income, adjusted net income, and adjusted earnings per share. This can be attributed to the overall volatility and uncertainty that we've seen in the markets in the first half of the year.

In the first quarter, rising inflation, weak economic data, the war in Iran, and rising oil prices caused markets to tank. Investors reallocated their portfolios, moving to the safety of interest-rate products and other stable investments. The second quarter featured a huge bounce-back rally as investors piled back into stocks, driving a lot of trading volume.

However, inflation has remained high, and macroeconomic concerns persist. As a result, sentiment on rates has flipped from an almost certain cut at the start of the year to the likelihood of a hike now.

Volatility and Fed indecision are good for CME The Fed's changing view on rates has created additional volatility, not just among interest rate products but also stocks. In July, the ADV for interest rate products was 12.6 million, up 17% year over year. June also saw a 17% increase in ADV for interest rate products.

But the increases have been much larger for equities. The ADV for stocks rose 48% to 8.2 million contracts in July. That follows a record 10.1 million ADV in June, up 54% year over year.

Today's Change

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1.10

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2.85

Current Price

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262.17

This shows growing Fed indecision about rates, as well as perhaps high market valuations and weak economic indicators, are prompting investors to rebalance their holdings to match evolving market conditions.

It also shows that CME stock, up 10% over the past month, thrives on volatility and may be a good option right now to profit from the uncertainty.

24/7 trading in silver commences September 11 Over $200M traded in weekend sessions for 1-Ounce Gold futures since July 24 launch , /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today announced that it will expand 24/7 trading to its 100-Ounce Silver futures contract from September 11, 2026, pending regulatory review.

"Silver bridges the precious and industrial metals worlds, acting as a diversifier for investors that responds to both macroeconomic news and real-world demand," said Jin Hennig, Managing Director and Global Head of Metals at CME Group. "Our retail clients have shown a strong appetite for right-sized gold futures available whenever they need them, so we are now extending that same 24/7 access to help participants manage risk and pursue opportunities in silver."

Since 24/7 trading in 1-Ounce Gold futures launched on July 24, over 53,000 contracts have traded during the newly expanded weekend trading sessions, representing approximately $219 million in notional value and is the largest liquidity pool for weekend trading in Gold futures. Both the 1-Ounce Gold and 100-Ounce Silver futures are designed to be right-sized for retail trading, with a smaller notional exposure.

CME Group offers the world's leading benchmark futures contract for silver. A record $50 billion average notional traded each day across CME Group's silver futures in the first half of the year. 100-Ounce Silver futures launched in February 2026, with 17,800 contracts ADV traded in the first half of 2026. CME Group's metals business set a new record in the first half of 2026, with a total of 1.3 million contracts traded daily driven by precious metals activity, up 55% year-on-year.

100-Ounce Silver futures are financially-settled based on the daily settlement price of the global benchmark COMEX 5,000-Ounce Silver futures contract and are listed by and subject to the rules of COMEX. For more information, please visit here.

As the world's leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, cryptocurrencies, energy, agricultural products and metals.  The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform.  In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing. 

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc.  NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.  COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec is a trademark of BrokerTec Americas LLC and EBS is a trademark of EBS Group LTD. The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC ("S&P DJI"). "S&P®", "S&P 500®", "SPY®", "SPX®", US 500 and The 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC; Dow Jones®, DJIA® and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored, endorsed, marketed, or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 

CME-G

SOURCE CME Group

New Standard-sized and Micro-sized contracts will be benchmarked to official NHL statistics , /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today announced it will launch the world's first index-based Hockey futures on September 28, pending regulatory review. The new contracts will track CME FutureSports Performance Indexes that include exclusive, real-time National Hockey League (NHL) statistics beginning with the 2026-2027 season.

"With our first major-league futures contracts on our NHL indexes, CME Group is bringing the principles and discipline of regulated markets to the businesses that need to manage price risk in professional sports," said Tim McCourt, Senior Managing Director and Global Head of Equities, FX and Alternative Products at CME Group. "Financial institutions, companies and individuals rely on the transparency and infrastructure of CME Group to hedge across all investable asset classes. Our CME FSPI Hockey futures will provide a capital-efficient way for fans, sponsors, broadcasters, third-party arena operators, retailers, food and beverage vendors and others to navigate the risk associated with the performance of each NHL team."

Steve Byrd, Head of Partnerships at FutureSports, said: "In just a matter of weeks, market participants and members of the hockey and sports ecosystem will have the first opportunity to trade a professional financial instrument based on indexes of continuous play-by-play performance statistics of each and every NHL team. NHL teams generated a record $1.53 billion in sponsorship revenue in the 2024-25 season and drew more than 23 million fans into arenas last season – the highest total attendance in the league's 108-year history. Interest is extraordinarily high, and we're delighted to bring these indexes to fruition with our partner, the NHL, and to the world's leading derivatives market with futures contracts trading on CME Group, our exclusive exchange partner."

CME Group Hockey futures will be available in standard-sized contracts, valued at 10x the value of the underlying CME FSPI NHL indexes, and micro-sized contracts that are 1/10 the value of those indexes. Participants can trade live around the clock, allowing for immediate positions on a regulated exchange with central clearing safeguards, transparent pricing and equal market access.

CME FSPI Indexes structure official sports statistics into rules-based, benchmark financial metrics. The performance of the indexes will be calculated using systematic methodologies where point allocations follow transparent statistical frameworks – adding points for positive actions and subtracting for negative plays or setbacks.

The CME FSPI Index methodologies align with the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) Principles for Financial Benchmarks and are supported by published governance and oversight procedures.

For more information, contract specifications and updates on the product rollout, and to learn more about the indexes or how to subscribe to index data visit cmegroup.com/fspi.

As the world's leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, cryptocurrencies, energy, agricultural products and metals.  The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform.  In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing. 

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc.  NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.  COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec is a trademark of BrokerTec Americas LLC and EBS is a trademark of EBS Group LTD. The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC ("S&P DJI"). "S&P®", "S&P 500®", "SPY®", "SPX®", US 500 and The 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC; Dow Jones®, DJIA® and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored, endorsed, marketed, or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

CME-G

SOURCE CME Group

, /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group Inc., the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today declared a third-quarter dividend of $1.30 per share. The dividend is payable September 25, 2026, to shareholders of record as of September 9, 2026.

As the world's leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, cryptocurrencies, energy, agricultural products and metals.  The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform.  In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing. 

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc.  NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.  COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec is a trademark of BrokerTec Americas LLC and EBS is a trademark of EBS Group LTD. The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC ("S&P DJI"). "S&P®", "S&P 500®", "SPY®", "SPX®", US 500 and The 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC; Dow Jones®, DJIA® and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored, endorsed, marketed, or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 

CME-G

SOURCE CME Group

HomeDividends AnalysisDividend Quick Picks

SummaryThis article is part of our monthly series where we highlight five large-cap, relatively safe, dividend-paying companies offering significant discounts to their historical norms. We go over our filtering process to select just five conservative DGI stocks from more than 7,500 companies that are traded on U.S. exchanges, including OTC networks. In addition to the primary list that yields 4.2%, we present two other groups of five DGI stocks each, from moderate to high yields of up to 8%. Looking for a portfolio of ideas like this one? Members of High Income DIY Portfolios get exclusive access to our subscriber-only portfolios. Learn More » Olivier Le Moal/iStock via Getty Images

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Author's Note: This is our monthly series on Dividend Stocks, usually published in the first week of every month. We scan the universe of roughly 7,500 stocks listed and traded on U.S. exchanges and use our

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Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of ABT, ABBV, CI, JNJ, PFE, NVS, NVO, AZN, UNH, CL, CLX, UL, NSRGY, PG, TSN, ADM, BTI, MO, PM, KO, PEP, EXC, D, DEA, DEO, ENB, MCD, BAC, PRU, UPS, WMT, WBA, CVS, LOW, AAPL, IBM, CSCO, MSFT, INTC, T, VZ, CVX, XOM, VLO, ABB, ITW, MMM, LMT, LYB, RIO, O, NNN, WPC, ARCC, TLT either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Disclaimer: The information presented in this article is for informational purposes only and in no way should be construed as financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any stock. The author is not a financial advisor. Please always do further research and do your own due diligence before making any investments. Every effort has been made to present the data/information accurately; however, the author does not claim 100% accuracy. The stock portfolios presented here are model portfolios for demonstration purposes. For the complete list of our LONG positions, please see our profile on Seeking Alpha.

Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

BitMEX, the exchange that launched crypto’s first perpetual futures contract, will close on September 23 after 11 years. BitMart, another crypto exchange, plans to wind down by January, according to Jean-Marie Mognetti, CoinShares co-founder, president and CEO.

Key Takeaways: BitMEX, BitMart, Movement Labs and Storj are all closing or filing for bankruptcy this year. Hyperliquid now gets 54% of its trading volume from stocks and commodities, not crypto. CoinShares points to Nasdaq-listed, SEC-registered BRRR and BTF as regulated crypto access. Movement Labs, the developer behind the Movement blockchain network, and Storj, which runs a decentralized cloud storage service, both filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection the same week, Mognetti wrote in a recent report.

Mognetti calls this a sorting, not a collapse. Blockchain was never going to replace the financial system, he wrote, only its back-end plumbing, and banks are now the ones building on top of it. For investors, that means bitcoin and other crypto exposure is increasingly moving into regulated ETFs, not unlicensed exchanges.

Consider Hyperliquid, one of the largest decentralized derivatives exchanges. For the first time, real-world assets, not crypto, made up 54% of its trading volume, about $26 billion, Mognetti wrote. Single stocks accounted for 61% of that volume, led by SK Hynix, the Korean semiconductor maker, not a token.

CME Group Inc. (CME) and Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (CBOE) continue to expand their crypto product lines. Crypto platforms are also increasingly listing stocks, ETFs, and commodities so investors can trade around the clock, according to Mognetti.

See more: DIME Taps Solana’s Role in Prediction Market Boom

Banks Build Out Their Own Crypto Rails JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) has processed more than $4 trillion in transactions on its Kinexys platform since launch. Daily volume now averages more than $7 billion across eight currencies, Mognetti wrote.

BlackRock, Inc. (BLK)’s tokenized Treasury fund has surpassed $2.5 billion in assets across eight blockchains. This year, it also became tradable on Uniswap and accepted as collateral on Binance, according to Mognetti.

The largest U.S. banks are also building a shared tokenized deposit network through The Clearing House, an industry-owned payments group, Mognetti wrote.

Regulation is helping decide who owns that plumbing, Mognetti wrote. The European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, known as MiCA, ended its transition period July 1. Thousands of unlicensed providers then had to stop serving European customers. The U.S. is moving through a similar filter with the Clarity Act, a bill that would set rules for digital assets inside the regulated financial system.

For investors, the CoinShares Bitcoin ETF (BRRR) and the CoinShares Bitcoin and Ether ETF (BTF) offer regulated exposure to bitcoin and ether. Both trade on Nasdaq and are registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That’s the same kind of oversight MiCA and the Clarity Act are extending to the rest of the industry.

[cky_video_placeholder_title]

For more news, information, and strategy, visit the CoinShares Crypto ETF Hub.

, /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today announced that nearly 15,000 1-Ounce Gold futures contracts traded during the inaugural weekend of its new 24/7 trading schedule, representing approximately $60 million in notional value.

"Gold is a global safe-haven asset, and global events don't stop on weekends," said Jin Hennig, Managing Director and Global Head of Metals at CME Group. "Our launch demonstrates that retail traders were ready and waiting for always-on, regulated and right-sized products to manage their exposure to gold."

"24/7 Gold futures from CME Group offer our customers the ability to trade regulated futures contracts at any time of the day, any day of the week, from any timezone," said Adam Hickerson, Senior Director and Chief Operating Officer of Robinhood Derivatives. "This brings instant real-time digital access to the world's oldest store of value."

CME Group offers the world's leading benchmark futures contract for gold. A record $125 billion average notional traded each day across CME Group's gold futures this year. 1-Ounce Gold futures contract launched in January 2025, with 87,000 contracts ADV traded in the first half of 2026. CME Group's metals business set a new record in the first half of 2026, with a total of 1.3M contracts traded daily driven by precious metals activity, up 55% year-on-year. 

For more information, please visit here.

As the world's leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, cryptocurrencies, energy, agricultural products and metals.  The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform.  In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing. 

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc.  NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.  COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec is a trademark of BrokerTec Americas LLC and EBS is a trademark of EBS Group LTD. The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC ("S&P DJI"). "S&P®", "S&P 500®", "SPY®", "SPX®", US 500 and The 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC; Dow Jones®, DJIA® and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored, endorsed, marketed, or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 

CME-G

SOURCE CME Group

Investors looking to wager on stocks such as SpaceX and Micron Technology now have a new tool: single-stock futures that trade for nearly 24 hours a day.

CME Group on Monday launched cash-settled single-stock futures on 55 U.S. equities, along with micro-sized contracts on 22 names, marking the exchange's push into a market designed to let investors take leveraged long or short positions around the clock.

The contracts trade on CME's Globex platform from Sunday evening through Friday afternoon, with a one-hour daily maintenance break, enabling investors to respond to earnings and other market-moving events outside regular U.S. stock market hours.

The lineup includes futures tied to SpaceX, one of Wall Street's most closely watched recent IPOs, as well as Micron Technology, Nvidia, Tesla and Apple. Standard contracts represent 100 shares of the underlying stock, while micro contracts represent 10 shares.

"Retail brokers have characterized the launch as the year's largest retail growth catalyst, with more than 35 retail partners targeting day one/week one readiness," Morgan Stanley analyst Michael Cyprys said in a note.

CME said the products are designed to offer a simpler way to express bullish or bearish views than options. Unlike options, single-stock futures do not involve time decay or changing implied volatility, while requiring only a fraction of the capital needed because they are traded on margin. The contracts are cash settled, with final settlement based on the stock's official closing price at expiration. They do not represent ownership in the companies.

The exchange said it may expand the lineup beyond the initial 55 stocks based on customer demand and its listing standards.

Exchange stocks like CME have come under pressure this year as perpetual futures emerging on overseas exchanges are seen as a rising threat to the traditional trading businesses even though most are currently not legal in the U.S.

CME, YTD

Kalshi and Coinbase were given the greenlight this year by the CFTC to offer cryptocurreny related 'perps', which are futures contracts without an expiration date. The regulatory move was seen as foreshadowing a wider approval for these types of products on equities. The overseas equity perps were in the spotlight ahead of the SpaceX IPO with international platforms like Hyperliquid offering perpetual futures in the Elon Musk space company ahead of its official debut.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) reported record second-quarter revenue and near-record trading activity, while executives used much of the company’s second-quarter 2026 earnings call to address investor questions about perpetual futures and outline a slate of new product launches.

Chairman and CEO Terry Duffy said second-quarter average daily volume was 29.8 million contracts, the second-highest second quarter in the company’s history and within 1% of the record set a year earlier. He said May and June were particularly strong following a difficult April comparison. Open interest ended the quarter up 8% from a year earlier and 16% since the start of 2026.

Duffy also said CME delivered record capital efficiencies, saving customers an average of more than $95 billion in margin per day. He said 94% of CME’s first-half volume came from institutional customers, a figure he used repeatedly to frame the company’s response to questions about perpetual futures.

Revenue Hits Second-Quarter Record Lynne said CME generated more than $1.7 billion in revenue during the second quarter, up 1% from the same period in 2025. She said that marked a second-quarter record and the company’s second-highest quarterly revenue total ever, behind the first quarter of 2026.

The average rate per contract was $0.678, up $0.026 from the first quarter. Market data revenue rose 20% to $238 million, which Lynne said extended CME’s streak to 33 consecutive quarters of year-over-year market data revenue growth and marked the eighth straight quarter of record market data revenue.

Adjusted expenses were $521 million, or $412 million excluding license fees. Adjusted operating income totaled $1.2 billion, producing a 69.5% adjusted operating margin. Adjusted net income was $1.1 billion, and adjusted diluted earnings per share were $2.99, up 1% from the second quarter of 2025. Lynne said the adjusted net income margin was 63.4%.

CME returned $1.2 billion to shareholders in the quarter, including $468 million in regular quarterly dividends and $695 million through share repurchases.

For the first half of 2026, Lynne said volume was 10% ahead of the prior year, revenue increased 8% and adjusted diluted earnings per share rose 10%. She also said July volumes to date were tracking 18% ahead of the prior year.

Executives Push Back on Perpetual Futures Concerns Duffy said recent discussion of perpetual futures had overshadowed CME’s business performance. He argued that although the products are often described as futures, they function more like leveraged spot instruments and are not substitutes for the institutional hedging tools used by CME’s core customers.

“Perpetual futures are in no way substitutes for the institutional hedging tools that these customers rely on,” Duffy said. He said the products do not provide price or time certainty, which he called necessary components for hedging exposures.

Duffy said CME has the technical and operational capabilities to launch perpetual futures and has contract specifications ready if customer demand or market structure changes justify it. However, he said the company has not heard demand from its core customers. In response to a question from Jefferies analyst Dan Fannon, Duffy said he had spoken with senior executives and derivatives users at major institutional participants, including a large commercial energy firm, and was told they did not want CME to list the product.

Tim added that CME’s cryptocurrency business has continued to grow even as crypto perpetuals have existed outside the U.S. He said CME’s suite of cryptocurrency futures and options was up 44% in the first half of 2026 compared with the first half of 2025, and up 76% in June from a year earlier. He said CME was seeing between $4.5 billion and $6.5 billion per day in trading across its cryptocurrency complex, compared with about $270 million at a Bitcoin perpetual product introduced by Kalshi in July.

Duffy also raised concerns about whether perpetual products should be classified as swaps, citing the exchange of payments through funding rates. In response to Deutsche Bank analyst Brian Bedell, he said CME believes its litigation will show that such products are swaps, not futures.

New Products Include Crypto, Gold, Single Stock Futures and Compute Futures Duffy highlighted several product initiatives, including 24/7 trading for crypto futures, 24/7 trading for CME’s one-ounce gold contract, Single Stock futures, Treasury Link and Compute Futures.

He said Single Stock futures are scheduled to launch the following week and will simplify directional trading with capital efficiency. Duffy acknowledged that Single Stock futures had failed in an earlier market cycle but said timing is important and that current market conditions make the product more relevant.

Tim said CME’s equity complex has shown momentum, with second-quarter average daily volume of 8.6 million contracts, up 13% year over year. He said June equity volume was 10.1 million contracts, up 54% from a year earlier, while July volumes were running about 40% to 50% above July 2025. He also said the new Single Stock futures will be financially settled against the closing print of each stock.

Julie said retail brokers globally were “extremely excited” about the Single Stock futures launch and described the product as a significant retail growth catalyst. She said more than 35 retail partners were targeting readiness for day-one or week-one activity.

Duffy and Derek Sammann also discussed Compute Futures, which CME plans to launch in partnership with Silicon Data later in 2026. Sammann said the product will be a daily benchmark tracking the spot hourly rental cost of NVIDIA H100 GPUs. He said the contracts are intended to provide price discovery and risk-management tools for data centers, AI labs, cloud providers, asset managers, banks, energy firms, hedge funds and professional trading firms.

Market Data, Prediction Markets and Treasury Link On market data, Julie said CME’s second-quarter revenue benefited from pricing, professional subscriber growth, derived data revenue and growth in simulation trading device accounts. She said professional subscribers rose 3.5% quarter over quarter, while simulation trading device accounts were up 56% year over year. The quarter also included about $7 million in audits and catch-up payments for prior periods, compared with $3.8 million in the first quarter.

Asked about prediction markets, Lynne said CME has handled about 525 million event contracts since launch, including about 48 million contracts related to market events. She said more than 140,000 accounts traded event contracts during the quarter, up about 13% from the prior quarter, and average daily volume was above 4 million, up about 40% from the first quarter. Duffy said CME is being careful about its product set and repeated his view that some sports-related prediction markets resemble gambling.

At the end of the call, Duffy asked for additional commentary on Treasury Link, a planned fourth-quarter 2026 offering. Mike said Treasury Link will enable centralized spread trading between Treasury futures and BrokerTec cash Treasuries on CME Globex, using FX Link technology. He said the product is designed to connect two major U.S. Treasury liquidity pools and reduce execution lag risk in cash-futures spread transactions.

Duffy closed the call by emphasizing CME’s institutional base, capital efficiencies and product pipeline, saying the company remains focused on expanding its marketplace while maintaining protections and market integrity.

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.

HomeStock IdeasLong IdeasFinancials 

SummaryCME Group is rated Buy, supported by record results and a resilient, defensible futures franchise.CME's moat is anchored in open interest and margin efficiencies, not just market share, insulating it from FMX's cash bond competition.Three underappreciated growth drivers: Treasury clearing, retail expansion, and crypto, are poised to fuel future compounding.Despite a slightly premium valuation (~20x earnings), CME offers quality defensive exposure and strong fundamentals, making the recent dip a buying opportunity. JHVEPhoto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images

The Investment Thesis CME Group (CME) shares have had a rough time of late.

This comes at an interesting time. CME closed 2025 as the best year in its history, its fourth consecutive year

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Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.