CME Group (CME) Q3 2026 Earnings Call: Record Volume and 13% Revenue Growth

Key Takeaways

• CME Group reported Q3 2026 revenue of $1.7 billion, up 13% year over year, while adjusted diluted EPS rose 13% to $3.02.
• Average daily volume reached a third-quarter record of 29.4 million contracts, up 16%, with double-digit growth across all six asset classes.
• Quarter-end open interest was 128 million contracts and subsequently exceeded 133 million. Average daily customer margin savings surpassed $100 billion.
• International average daily volume increased 22% to a record 9 million contracts, led by 28% growth in APAC and 20% growth in EMEA.
• Market Data revenue set an all-time quarterly record of $243 million, up 20%, marking the 34th consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth.
• CME Group returned nearly $1 billion to shareholders through $465 million of regular quarterly dividends and $524 million of share repurchases.

Core Financial Data

Through the first nine months of 2026, revenue increased 9% and adjusted EPS rose 11%.

Business and Operating Performance

Q3 average daily volume increased 16% to 29.4 million contracts. Financial and commodity product volumes each rose 16%, while the Equity complex led growth with a 23% increase. All six asset classes recorded double-digit year-over-year volume gains.

International average daily volume reached 9 million contracts. EMEA volume rose 20% to 6.5 million contracts per day, while APAC increased 28% to 2.1 million. International growth was led by energy products, up 40%; agricultural products, up 28%; and equity index products, up 24%.

Market Data revenue benefited from a broader professional subscriber base, growth in retail and nonprofessional subscribers, stronger data-feed demand, SOFR-related activity, pricing changes and policy adjustments. More than 50% of Market Data demand came from outside the U.S. The quarter also included $4.7 million of audit revenue and catch-up payments for prior-period usage.

Average daily customer margin savings exceeded $100 billion. Equity-related savings were just under $47 billion in Q3, including nearly $42 billion from CME’s futures and options offsets and more than $5 billion from the CME-OCC cross-market agreement. Swap portfolio-margining savings averaged $13.2 billion per day in September, up 58% year over year, while CME-FICC cross-margining savings averaged $2.3 billion per day.

CME Group launched Single Stock Futures and E-nano Equity Index futures during the quarter. Single Stock Futures generated more than 315,000 contracts and approximately $3.5 billion in notional value. Distribution had reached 25 major retail broker partners, with participation across more than 50 countries.

The company also expanded 24/7 trading to its 1-ounce gold and 100-ounce silver contracts. Management said weekend volumes represented approximately 20% to 30% of average daily volume for those contracts.

Management Outlook

Management said early fourth-quarter volume was 17% above the prior-year record fourth quarter, while year-to-date volume was tracking 12% above the previous record year. The company said it remained on track for another record year, although it did not provide specific revenue or earnings guidance.

Pricing changes implemented on October 1 are expected by management to add approximately 0.5% to 1% to clearing and transaction fees on an annualized basis. The changes affect cryptocurrency products, parts of the grains complex, selected interest-rate tiers and Micro equity products.

CME Securities Clearing remains scheduled to launch on December 7, ahead of the SEC’s Treasury clearing mandate. CME also expects to begin migrating its markets to Google Cloud in late 2027, subject to continued implementation progress.

Risks and Areas to Watch

The proposed compute futures product remains subject to regulatory approval. The CFTC extended its comment period by 45 days through November 9, and management did not provide a launch date. CME said demand has emerged from neocloud companies, data-center operators, banks, funds and corporations.

CME withdrew its filing for a 24/7 10-barrel WTI contract following regulatory delays and concerns from commercial participants about staffing and operating costs. Management said broader adoption of 24/7 trading in major markets will depend on banking, liquidity and back-office infrastructure operating continuously.

The company is also involved in litigation concerning the regulatory classification of perpetual contracts. Management expressed confidence in its position but said any decision to launch perpetual products would depend on the court outcome and future regulatory proposals.

Management highlighted leverage on some overseas perpetual platforms as a potential source of systemic risk. It said CME would continue to prioritize market integrity, financial safeguards and client protection when introducing new products.

Analyst Q&A Highlights

• Capital allocation: Management emphasized flexibility across quarterly dividends, variable dividends and share repurchases. CME remains selective on acquisitions, focusing on transactions that could add clients, products or capital efficiencies.
• Single Stock Futures: Management sees the product as relevant to both retail and institutional clients. Institutional demand centers on margin efficiency and cross-margining, while retail positioning emphasizes leverage, static delta and the absence of option time decay.
• Market Data: Growth was broadly distributed across professional users, nonprofessional subscribers and data-feed demand. Management did not provide a forward growth rate.
• Open interest: Management said weekly and other short-dated expirations make current open-interest comparisons less straightforward than in prior years. Total open interest nevertheless remained above 133 million contracts during October.
• Treasury Link: The platform entered client testing and is designed to enable centralized spread trading between Treasury futures and cash Treasuries, reducing execution timing risk.
• Retail participation: CME added more than 100,000 new retail traders during the quarter, a 40% increase from a year earlier. Management said institutional activity still represents 94% of CME’s business and remains central to its liquidity ecosystem.
• CBOE-S&P licensing agreement: CME expects to benefit through its joint venture from pricing increases beginning in 2027, although the precise economics had not yet been disclosed.

Full Earnings Call Transcript

Complete Earnings Call Transcript

Management Remarks

Operator

Welcome to the CME Group Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the call over to Adam Minick. Please go ahead.

Adam Minick

Good morning, and I hope you're all doing well today. Earlier this morning, we released our earnings commentary, which provides extensive details on the third quarter 2026, which we will be discussing on this call. I'll start with the safe harbor language, and then I'll turn it over to Terry.

Statements made on this call and in the other reference documents on our website that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or implied in any statement. Detailed information about factors that may affect our performance can be found in the filings with the SEC, which are on our website. Lastly, in the earnings release, you have a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP measures following the financial statements.

With that, I'll turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Terry Duffy.

Terrence Duffy

Thanks, Adam, and thank you all for joining us this morning. I'll make a few comments about our exceptional third quarter performance before turning it over to Lynne, to provide an overview of our financial results. In addition to Lynne, we have other members of our management team present to answer questions after the prepared remarks.

Against the backdrop of shifting Central Bank policies, geopolitical uncertainty and persistent market volatility, global participants continue to turn to CME Group in record numbers. The third quarter average daily volume of 29.4 million contracts was the highest third quarter average daily volume in CME Group's history, and increased 16% compared to the same period last year. This strong growth was broad-based as we achieved double-digit year-over-year volume growth in all 6 asset classes. Our Financial and Commodity products volume each grew by 16%. Beyond the strong volume growth, the underlying health of the business is perhaps best reflected in the strength of our open interest and the significant capital efficiencies we provide to our customers.

Quarter-end open interest reached 128 million contracts, and today, it's over 133 million, the highest open interest at the end of September in our history. As I said, this open interest continues to grow in October. We also set a record for a number of large open interest holders in both our interest rates and foreign exchange complexes in September. Additionally, we delivered record levels of capital efficiency in the third quarter, saving our customers an average of over $100 billion a day in margin savings. This was a record third quarter for our International business as well, where average daily volume reached 9 million contracts, up 22% versus last year. This was led by 6.5 million average daily volume from EMEA, which was up 20% and 2.1 million contracts per day from APAC, up 28%. The record International volume was driven by growth in energy products, up 40%, agricultural products were up 28% and equity index products were up 24% to support our customers.

Product innovation remains central to our strategy. During the quarter, we launched several new products, including Single Stock Futures and E-nano Equity Index futures. We also expanded 24/7 trading to both our 1 ounce gold and 100-ounce silver contracts, building on the strong traction of our 24/7 cryptocurrency products launched earlier this year.

Looking ahead, we are on track for our December 7 launch of CME Securities Clearing in advance of the SEC's treasury curing mandate. Innovation will continue to be a key driver of our performance and our ability to serve our clients effectively. However, true innovation must always be anchored in market integrity, financial safeguards and client protection. Innovation without real risk management isn't progress. It has the potential to create systemic risk. CME Group remains committed to ensuring market integrity and will never sacrifice core protections in the name of innovation. Instead, we continue to launch innovative products while preserving the safety and soundness of our marketplace.

Technology innovation will also be responsive to client needs. As part of our ongoing cloud migration with Google Cloud, [indiscernible] in the Dallas disaster recovery facility for client testing in June. The performance of that infrastructure has been positive with latency and consistency as good or better than our on-premises offering. The primary [indiscernible] region continues to progress to plan, and we expect to begin this cloud migration of our markets in late 2027. Given this time line and the positive testing to date, we have determined that in the interim, relocation of our livestock markets to Dallas is no longer necessary. Next-generation market participants require premier technology optionality. CME Group is uniquely positioned as the -- the only global exchange offering clients the dual advantage of Google Cloud Managed Services alongside ultra-low latency colocation.

It's clear that market participants continue to turn to CME Group to navigate a complex and rapidly evolving global economy. I'm incredibly proud of what we have achieved this quarter, and I'm highly confident in the opportunities ahead of us. With that, I will hand the call over to Lynne to discuss our financial performance in more detail.

Lynne Fitzpatrick

Thanks, Terry, and thank you all for joining us this morning. As Terry mentioned, CME Group generated impressive third quarter financial growth, with revenue of $1.7 billion was up 13% from the third quarter in 2025. This marks a record for third quarter revenue in aggregate and included a new all-time quarterly record for Market Data $243 million. Market Data revenues were up 20% and delivered the 34th consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth. Adjusted expenses were $532 million for the quarter and $428 million, excluding [ license fees ]. The strong growth in volume this quarter, led by our Equity Complex up 23%, resulted in an increase in license fees, which are primarily related to equity activities. Our revenue growth and operating leverage resulted in adjusted operating income of $1.2 billion, up 15% year-over-year or 69.4% adjusted operating margin.

Adjusted net income was $1.1 billion, resulting in adjusted diluted earnings per share of $3.02, up 13% from Q3 2025. Our adjusted net income margin for the quarter was 62.4%. Reinforcing our commitment to disciplined capital return, we returned nearly $1 billion to shareholders during the quarter with $465 million in regular quarterly dividends and $524 million in share repurchase. The third quarter results underscore CME Group's position as the primary definition for global risk management, delivering double-digit volume growth across every single asset class, drove double-digit gains in both revenue and earnings resulting in the second highest revenue, adjusted net income and earnings per share any quarter in our history.

Through the first 3 quarters of this year, our revenues have grown by 9% and our adjusted earnings per share by 11%. Our strong year-to-date momentum reflects robust client demand across our global benchmark products and continued innovation to best serve our clients. As we enter the fourth quarter, volume is surpassing last year's record fourth quarter by 17% and we are tracking 12% ahead of last year's record volume year-to-date as we remain firmly on track to deliver another record year, our focus remains on delivering deep liquid markets and [indiscernible] and capital efficiencies for our clients and strong earnings for our shareholders.

We'd now like to open up the call for your questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question in the queue is from Chris Allen with KBW.

Question-and-Answer Session

Christopher Allen

I wanted to ask on compute futures. I know the CFTC extended the comment period. Just wondering if you see any hurdles to launching this product. Judging by our review of the comments, it doesn't seem like any real pushback there. Maybe any update on client feedback, appetite for compute futures? And then whether you're seeing any incremental impact from hyperscale and data centers within the energy product complex?

Terrence Duffy

Thanks, Chris. Chris, it's Terry Duffy. I'm going to start, and I'll let Derek make some comments as well. On the client development, Derek can touch on, because Derek and I and [indiscernible] we all have been working with clients on the street as it relates to compute futures and what they mean for their portfolios and their businesses. As far as the timing of the agency goes, that is still unknown. As you know, they extended the comment period another 45 days, which ends, I believe, on November 9. So then they have to make a decision on what they want to do. We think this is a product that needs to get out.

When you look at all the conversation around data centers, AI, hyperscalers, chips, we have people contacting us that are looking and do a [indiscernible] reference it about how they need to manage this risk in this ever-changing landscape that they're in. So I would hope that the government would allow this product to move forward sooner rather than later. But again, it's in their hands right now and there's not much more we can do until we get the approval from the government. As you know, this was filed under a 40.3 which is a full review of the process and we respect the processes. So we look forward to that going forward. And again, I think this is -- we're playing the long in, as it relates to compute futures. But we wanted to make sure with this product up launched so people can manage the risk. And Derek, I'll let you talk a little bit more about the client set.

Derek Sammann

Yes. Thanks, Chris. I think this has been a tremendous source of client engagement. If you look at that how we've been working on this. We've seen this opportunity talking to our customers. We've been working on compute for almost 2 years now. Given the nature and the scale of our energy franchise where this fits so nicely in connection with our Natgas franchise and the rest of our hedging tools, we're the natural partner for customers to partner with to develop new products. So looking at this over the last 2 years, we spent a lot of time looking at different indexes and PRAs and providers [indiscernible] that on silicon data as what we think the most robust provider of data. We see them providing data observation at huge scale across dozens of platforms and thousands of data points in all types of transactions. We also see them having a robust data set out across the forward curve, and that's crucial for developing an index that is going to be the basis for futures contract.

Another important point is the silicon data's index is already IOSCO-compliant, meaning it's globally ready to be adopted by the community for the benchmark product itself. In terms of the client participation base, we're seeing really early adoption come from the neocloud players, data center operators, banks. If you think about the banks, they're significantly exposed to the AI infrastructure on their leverage portfolios and where they're lending for the growth there. So they're exposed to the AI sector creates an un-hedge able risk, this is the solution for that. We've also seen a lot of interest from funds and crops. And as it relates to potential cross-sell opportunities, much that we saw when we built out [indiscernible] metals. This is bringing new commercial customers into our orbit that previously hadn't used our products to manage the risk in their portfolios. So this is opening new opportunities with chip providers and different kinds of participants that we can actually cross-sell opportunities into. So I think its early days as Terry said, we're ready to go. We're waiting for regulatory review. But I can say definitively, this product has a significant amount of client demand and the Street is eager to be able to access these.

Operator

Next question is from Patrick Moley with Piper Sandler.

Patrick Moley

So I had one on 24/7 trading. Gold and silver are now trading around the clock. And I think in the deck, you said weekend volumes were at about 20% to 30% of those contracts to ADV. So there's clearly demand there. But you did withdraw the 10-barrel WTi filing after the CFTC stay and the industry pushback that you cited. So could you just walk us through maybe what the key constituents concerns actually were there and what the path and time line is to maybe bringing 24/7 Energy back? And then maybe more broadly, just how are you thinking about which asset classes you could potentially bring 24/7 next?

Terrence Duffy

Thanks, Patrick, and you highlighted the success we've had with both the gold, silver and the cryptocurrency trading 24/7. As we move forward and listed our for an application for our 24/7 small 10-barrel oil contract. We're trying to give a place -- the marketplace with an opportunity to hedge over the weekend, as they are doing today, even though participants are trading on what is called the VPN, and they're trading overseas on markets that our U.S. participants are not supposed to be participating in. Yet we have not seen any evidence of any policing of that activity. So I'm very surprised by that, to be honest with you.

So I'm surprised our 24/7 oil got held up, but let's talk about that for a second why? From the commercial side. Commercials are looking to make sure that they have the big contract where they want it, and we support that. They did not want to staff up another desk. We respect that. We respect that there's cost of moving to 24/7 on any product and this one in particular as well. So we wanted to be mindful, respectful of the commercial participants and what they're hearing to date. But I think the bigger question is what is the agency doing and what are others doing to make certain that U.S. participants are adhering to U.S. law. So for now, we heat the advice of the commercial participants, and we rolled off on listing that contract to [indiscernible]. As far as other products go, did you say, Patrick?

Patrick Moley

Yes. Just how do you think about which asset classes to bring 24/7 next. What makes sense?

Terrence Duffy

I'm a big believer. I've said this publicly, too, Patrick, as you know. When you go to 24/7, I think the market is ultimately going to 24/7 on all products, but you need to have the infrastructure to support 24/7. As I've said, the U.S. equity market alone is $76 trillion, nobody can prefund that on a Friday. It's really important that we have an infrastructure in the United States that set up to handle 24/7 markets, not just for crypto, not just for maybe a small silver gold or oil contract but for our primary products. So it's going to be harder and harder for anybody to list a primary product till the infrastructure of the banking system grows 24/7, because that's what lends credibility to the participant and we are certain that we have the liquidity and the back office support in order to run those markets.

Operator

The next question is from Alex Kramm with UBS.

Alex Kramm

Actually, just a quick numbers question, if I can. On the below-the-line items, the interest income on a net basis kind of surprised me a bit. I think the clearinghouse assets went down, I think, a couple of percent quarter-over-quarter, but I think the net interest went down 8%. I know there's a few other things that go in there in terms of your own cash and obviously, rates environment or just -- maybe you can just give us a detail view quarter-over-quarter. What exactly happened there so we can maybe model a little bit better.

Terrence Duffy

Lynne?

Lynne Fitzpatrick

Sure, Alex. So if you look at the cash at the clearing house, the average balances for the quarter were $147 billion in Q3. That was down from about $150 billion in Q2 with a similar return of about 33 basis points that we [ earned ]. We did have an increase in our corporate cash. We had about $27 million in earnings on that in the quarter. You obviously then have the JV income that is rolling through that line. Interest expense was relatively flat. So it's really the balance changes that you're seeing roll through there.

Operator

The next question is from Dan Fannon with Jefferies.

Daniel Fannon

I was hoping to talk about pricing -- if you could talk to the changes that went into effect here in early October in more detail, as well as the potential implications to you from any of the -- from the changes in the CBOE S&P licensing deal through your JV ownership?

Terrence Duffy

Thanks, Dan. Good question. I'll let Lynne go ahead and start on the pricing, and I might touch on the CBOE one as well.

Lynne Fitzpatrick

So on the pricing side, we did have some impacts that were implemented here on October 1. [indiscernible], if you look at an annualized basis, those to have an impact at somewhere in the range of 0.5% to 1% of the clearing and transaction fees. So say, the lines where you're seeing those changes, they're going to be in crypto, some in our grains complex. We did adjust some of the tiers in interest rates and then the micros equities as well. So just to keep in mind, we did have some pricing changes in April. We are moving away from having that annual price increase, and we are looking at doing it more spread out through the course of the year when we see changes in marketplaces when we see value creation at that point. So that's what this is reflective of.

Terrence Duffy

Dan, on the CBOE licensing agreement, obviously, we all know it's a 25-year extension they put forward. There's a couple of interesting points in that. As you know, we're a partner in the JV. So we benefit from that licensing agreement with CBOE. What's really interesting about that is we benefit starting in 2027 on potential increases, not 2032 because their agreement -- the escalation of the pricing starts in '27. What those are exactly is yet to be disclosed from both CBOE and S&P Global. But we know that we've been working with our partner at S&P Global, and we know they do escalate. So whether they are, we'll wait and see like everybody else. But we know we're in a much better situation economically with the S&P deal going forward, and we're there actually 5 years ahead of time in getting paid at a higher rate. So we'll wait and see until they report on what the cap -- the nuance of the numbers are. But largely, it's very much a winning proposal for CBOE [indiscernible] and our shareholders.

Operator

The next question is from Michael Cyprus with Morgan Stanley.

Michael Cyprys

I wanted to ask about single stock futures. I was hoping you could talk about the distribution strategy as you're working with retail brokers on the product, what the feedback has been? And then related to that, given you already have a prediction market today, I guess, what's the scope to potentially introduce prediction markets on single stocks kind of equivalent to maybe a single [indiscernible], but more of a prediction market contract. Do you think there might be appetite for that? And what might be the required build there?

Terrence Duffy

So three questions that you asked there, Michael and I'm going to ask Tim McCourt and maybe Julie Winkler to chime in as far as the distribution, the clients, and then I'll talk a little bit about the prediction side of your question. So Tim, I'll start with you.

Tim McCourt

Yes, Michael. I appreciate the question. So we've launched single-stock futures and off to a good and strong start for that product. We've done a little bit over 315,000 contracts in sponsors about $3.5 billion of notional. And I think what's important to note, when we look at the distribution, we have 2 size products that we have. The 100 [indiscernible] buyer across [ 55 ] of the largest names in the U.S., and we have the 10 share multiplier across 22 names of [indiscernible]. So when we look at the distribution strategy, it's really a continuation of making sure that all market participants, whether they're institutional or individual traders have the products they need to access these markets and manage their risk.

When we look at the distribution, I think the one thing that we're encouraged by is we do have global participation in these products. When we look at the European and APAC market, we've also seen strong uptake but they are more familiar with the product regionally, and this is something that is relatively reintroduced in the U.S. perspective. So when we look at the partnerships, the tapping into 130-plus retail firms that we work with alongside several dozen FCMs that we have on the [indiscernible] side. We're encouraged by the growth we've seen. But with any new product, where we're reintroducing an interesting new market structure for that financially settled single stock future. It does take time to work with our FCMs, to work with our vendors as we head into the last quarter here of 2026. We're encouraged by what we see. And then we look forward to continuing to have it grow from here, but strong performance on this product out of the gate.

Terrence Duffy

Thanks, Tim. Julie, do you want to add a little bit?

Julie Winkler

As Tim pointed out, we've had commercial momentum across over 50 countries globally. So the interest is definitely there. Just from a perspective of like what's most interesting to clients, certainly on the institutional side, this is a capital and margin efficiency play. We have said this is a core tenet of our strategy across all of our asset classes. But particularly for this product, right, the ability to cross margin single stock futures against the robust CME equity index products and it's helping them unlock additional equity financing capacity. The buy-side firms that we are speaking with are also actively embedding single stock features into their QIS strategies and long short equity models. So that's certainly positive.

And when we look on the retail side, we've got distribution to 25 of our top retails broker partners today. And this is -- the value proposition for them is really it's an options alternative and we're looking at it as our clients and brokers as a key differentiator across leverage, static delta, zero option Greeks and it doesn't have any time decay. So for us, the focus has very much been on building of that liquidity. And as Tim pointed out, we have some additional FCMs that are going live here in Q4. So we think we've got some great momentum going into the end of the year.

Terrence Duffy

And Michael, on your question as it relates to predictions on single stocks. You got to remember, we listed single stock features going way back in 2000. The product did not grew up around very well because of the [indiscernible] reasons, and I don't need to go through them right now. But we've been working hard, Tim and his team they'd been working, Julie and her team and [indiscernible] working hard to make sure that we can have a successful single-stock future contract moving forward because we do believe it's an important instrument for participants from the retail to the largest institutions to use.

But I don't think you can draw the conclusion that every single market, it has to have a prediction market associated with it. And I think that you're getting a narrative right now where people believe that every market should have a prediction market associated with it. It doesn't make it right to do that. So I'm not suggesting that we would not want to go down to have a prediction market on single stock futures. What I think is going to be important is single stock futures get off the ground, the way they've been doing, methodically working to look at this at the long game.

And then if we want to introduce another version of it with a prediction market, we will do so at time once we get a better sample of the client base and how they are participating. But right now, so this is really important for this product, which has been duly regulated. There's been a host of concerns going forward that we need to analyze and make a decision on how we're going to do that going forward. This contract will go forward without prediction to start with for sure.

Operator

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

Craig Siegenthaler

Our question is on the CFTC perpetual suit. How should we weigh the perpetual's lawsuit against your earlier comments that clients aren't asking for perpetuals? And if the case is dismissed and perps are deemed futures in the U.S. would [indiscernible] list its own perpetuals given its exclusivity in equity index futures?

Terrence Duffy

Yes, Craig, thank you for the question. And our new General Counsel, John Marchese, he is on the line. John, I'll let you go ahead and start and then I'll go from there.

John Marchese

Yes. So in terms of the lawsuit itself, as you know, a motion to dismiss has been filed. We've opposed it. We are very confident in our position, and we are also going to brief the substance of the case and expect it to be [indiscernible] for the judge in December. So we are confident in our position, and we are awaiting the court decision and are eager to get a decision. We think it will fall in our favor. And I'll kick it back to you, Terry, on the sort of question strategically about what that means going forward.

Terrence Duffy

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

Craig Siegenthaler

Yes. So if the case is dismissed or essentially, if you guys lose it, and Perp is deemed as future in the U.S., I believe you have exclusivity with equity index. You could have a monopoly in that business, would you then turn around and launch perpetuals in that category where there might be strong demand and [indiscernible] can own it?

Terrence Duffy

Yes. Again, Craig, I think I'll go back to the earlier answer around prediction markets. We'll make that decision if and when the time comes, whatever the court decides, we will abide by the court's decisions and we will move forward. The question is, would we list perps or not? That question has yet to be asked and answered yet publicly. So I will tell you that for now the question of is it a perp, or is it a future is it a swap? I mean all you have to do is Google the definition of a swap, and it's no different than a fixed versus floating rate, when you look at a swap today. And when you look at a swap on perpetuals under Dodd-Frank, it suggests that swap is designed as two people exchanging payments for that similar product that is called the funding rate of the perp and that is deemed the swap. So we're fairly confident in our position on that. But again, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it, and not until. So I would not make a decision one way or another if we would go forward at perps for now. But again, we feel very strongly about our case as our General Counsel stated.

Operator

The next question is from Simon Clinch with Rothschild & Co Redburn.

Simon Alistair Clinch

I was wondering if we could just jump to the Market Data business. Obviously, it's been a couple of quarters now of 20% growth, if not more. And I was wondering if you could just walk through again the kind of secular drivers here and how we should think about the normal kind of growth rate from this business going forward?

Lynne Fitzpatrick

Yes. So thanks for the question, Simon. It was another record quarter, 20%, $243 million. And how I'll break that down for you is we're really seeing an incredibly diverse mix of drivers across the entire ecosystem. And the group is really broken down into three main buckets. 1/3 has been from our expanding professional subscriber base, and that's for our real-time market data, 1/3 coming from our retail and SIM platforms, so that's our nonprofessional subscribers. And the remainder in that last category is really driven by a combination of increased data feed demand, the terms SOFR, some of the pricing adjustments that we've made and a few more policy changes.

So really, what we're seeing is that this demand for CME Data has been increasing as clients need access our prices for trading, for research and product creation. And that's really [indiscernible] of a really dynamic macroeconomic environment and characterized by a lot of global volatility. I heard this first hand when I was attending the Global Market Data Conference in Copenhagen last week and was engaging with many of our Market Data partners and our clients.

The last part, we had $4.7 million in audits this quarter and some catch-up payments for prior period use. So that was a little low what we saw in Q2. And I would just say data continues to be a critical input, and it is a leading indicator for our market. We're continuing to invest in this growing business. And also keep in mind that a lot of our Market Data business is driven outside the U.S. And so a demand over 50% comes from outside the U.S., Data business is almost always a first to customer asset for us and solution for them. And so we're continuing to listen to our customers, improve the client experience, but we don't share specific expectations about future growth.

Operator

The next question is from Dan Welden with Wells Fargo.

Daniel F. Welden

I have a question about innovation speed. If I look at Slide 8, from this morning, you've got 15 new announcements or launches, and I go back a few quarters and that was more like single digits. So am I right to think that the cadence is increasing here? And you've historically framed like roughly 2% of your growth or [indiscernible] coming from new products. But with the things like compute, single stock futures, other things we talked about today, does that 2% feel conservative at this moment?

Terrence Duffy

Julie? Thank you, Dan. Appreciate it.

Julie Winkler

Yes. And I'll start out and then Tim can [indiscernible] in. Certainly, it has been a busy year for product launches. You're correct in that. We've had the 368 new products year-to-date. And that is in addition to advances, right, that we're making in our execution technology where we're looking to introduce things like Treasury Link. And these are things where we've proven we have the technology to be able to do this work, but we also have the throughput from being able to quickly launch these new products on both the institutional as well as the retail side. And that means a lot of partnership with our distribution networks as well as with our Market Data network to make that successful.

So I think it proves that we can move quickly as well as we are the only [indiscernible] exchange that is offering 24/7 products. that doesn't just happen because we will it to be done. It takes a lot of work and technical agility in our part, and we've proven we can do that. Lynne do you want to take it up?

Lynne Fitzpatrick

Dan, [indiscernible] to answer your question, I don't know if there's a fundamental change in the outlook. We typically don't break down as a percent of what's coming from new products going forward. I think we're in an environment now where there are many new risks that are coming forward that we are looking to address for [indiscernible] base. I think the beauty of having the broad products that we have is that when we do go to launch new products, particularly in a space where those clients are already connected. So we're meeting that need, that additional risk for clients that are already connected to CME. So we'll continue to look at areas that risks are evolving and looks to meet that need with new products. But it's hard to forecast what the years ahead will bring, but we certainly feel that we had a good position to continue to grow and [indiscernible] products as those [indiscernible] arrive.

Terrence Duffy

Yes. And thank you for your question. I think I referred to [indiscernible] at this time, so I apologize. I know its Dan, so welcome. I know you're another analyst to scare me. So thank you for your question. Appreciate it.

Operator

The next question comes from Bill Katz with TD Cowen.

William Katz

Maybe to mix up the topics a little bit. I was wondering if you can talk a little about capital priorities from here. It's great to see continued buyback, if you will, there's been a fair amount of industry consolidation, maybe more in the cash markets and the futures market. But how are you thinking about sort of priorities from here, maybe buyback versus anything on the inorganic side?

Terrence Duffy

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

Lynne Fitzpatrick

Yes. So Bill, I would point out, obviously, we had the [indiscernible] that we were looking to return through the repurchase program, and we have now completed the redeploy of that. So I want to make sure that was noted. What we like about our capital return policy is the flexibility. So whether that's our variable dividend structure or the repurchase. We have the ability to be flexible. So we have opportunities where to come up on the inorganic side. We have that ability to flex. We also have a very low debt load. So we set up our capital structure in a way that gives us a lot of optionality.

That being said, we have tended over time to be a lot more choosing when it comes to M&A. We're not active in that market at all times, what we tend to look for are things where we're bringing additional clients or additional products or driving additional capital efficiencies for our customer base. So we tend to be a bit more focused within our lane when it comes to M&A. But I think we've got a unique capital structure that gives us a lot of ability to [indiscernible].

Terrence Duffy

And just to add to what Lynne said, Bill, I mean, we have been very disciplined. Our debt load is probably the lowest in most -- in our sector for sure, and other companies of our size. So that does put us in a very advantageous situation if we were to do something. Also, I think when you look at our mix year return of capital going as a dividend paying stock since 2002 to today and returning capital that way and now with the share repurchase. I just want to emphasize how important that is to different constituents of people who own CME and how they like to have that capital return to them, whether it's through buybacks, whether it's through the special or whether it's through the quarterly dividend.

But we are in a very, very strong position to do a lot of different things that we so choose. And again, I think what Lynne said, it's right. We just don't go out taking and shopping for things that we don't think we need, just to buy the buy. So we're very focused. And I think the reason why we stay focused is because when you look at that $100 billion of efficiencies that Lynne referenced a moment ago, that was just $40 billion, not too long ago. And these are things that we have been able to accomplish, not only with the growth of our business, but some of the plug-and-play technology and other things that we have to enhance the volume of our business. So that is how we grow the business.

Operator

And the next question is from Ken Worthington with JPMorgan.

Kenneth Worthington

I wanted to ask about the trends in open interest and how you see the relative importance of the data as you think about the volume outlook? So as of September 30, 2026 versus September 30, 2025, equity open interest was up 0.2%. Interest rate OI was up 1.2% and Energy OI was down 3.6%. So it appeared to be a very strong environment for all 3 asset classes and volumes were up low to mid-teens across the board in 3Q, as you highlighted. But it's velocity that's driving volume, not OI. So the question is, why didn't OI really grow in the quarter in these products? And how big a factor is this in the outlook for volumes as we start to think about 2027?

Terrence Duffy

So I am very much of the mindset and that we talk about open interest because it shows the people that are parking their positions on CME's books to manage risk. I referenced a number of 133 million open positions as of this morning. Our open interest has been sitting at very lofty levels for a long time. And the reason why I think that is more impressive today than it was as little as 5 years ago is because we didn't have some of these option products that expire in short-term basis is like we do today. We didn't have weekly options expirations. We had quarterly options expirations, semi-quarterly that we had different types of products with different instruments where you would see the open interest build up significantly.

So as impressive as we all been interested in, and I will talk about it all the time. I think you have to look at it in the light that we do have many different expirations that we did not have just a couple of years ago. So that's why you're seeing the numbers that you decided a moment ago. But again, I think that is a good problem to have to maintain levels in the single digits when you're having expirations on a weekly basis versus either a monthly or quarterly basis. That's the big difference.

Operator

And the next question is from Ben Budish with Barclays.

Benjamin Budish

I was wondering if you could spend a minute on Treasury Link. It looks like it's now live in testing. Could you maybe talk about any kind of early reads or feedback? And then maybe remind us about how you're thinking about the market opportunity sort of potential size of the market that you're thinking about going after and the economic model? Is this simply [ club ] balances and brokerage revenues? Or what else should we be thinking about there?

Terrence Duffy

Yes. Thanks, Ben. I'll let Mike go ahead and talk a little bit about that. It's been a little bunker -- has gone on as it relates to some of the Treasury Link stuff. So I'll let Mike go ahead and touch on.

Paul Woolman

Yes. No. Thanks, Terry. It has been an interesting time. in the rates landscape. Obviously, no shortage of things going on in the interest rate complex. But to get to your question Ben on Treasury Link, it's an industry-first treasury functionality that will enable transparent centralized spread trading between treasury futures and broker-type cash treasuries on C&D Globex. This new offering really gives [indiscernible] 2 leading U.S. treasury liquidity pools, bringing unique innovation and it will enable guaranteed execution of anybody trading cash versus [indiscernible] transactions and eliminate lagging risk in the process [indiscernible] that over the weekend, Treasury Link is live now in our new release environment and clients have been testing the functionality this week.

And we've seen a lot of strong demand from both existing and prospective participants who are interested in realizing execution efficiencies between cash and futures, and Treasury Link, which just represents the next stage an initiative to bring our cash and futures markets closer together. We're looking at, aside from treasuries, futures, versus cash, what are some other things that we can do to link products together. This is an evolving time in the treasury landscape. We have a new Fed chair who is committed to overall in their communication strategy. We continue to see record debt levels we see treasury intervention in our markets, and we're fastly approaching the treasury and repo clearing mandate. So it's just another example of how the CME Group continues to evolve and innovate, deliver [indiscernible] to our clients alongside $30 billion in merchant savings across future options, swaps and cash. So I appreciate the question. More to come. But thanks, Ben.

Operator

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

Brian Bedell

Terry, one for you, just to maybe come back to perpetuals and retail more broadly. So you did talk about systemic risk. Just maybe if you can just update us on your view on if equity index perpetual futures were to be approved in the U.S. How are you viewing that as a systemic risk potential? And I guess, do you see that potential approval ever coming to fruition? Or do you think there'll be enough industry resistance?

And then combined with that, you've seen, obviously, very good growth in the equity index micros. And so maybe just talk about how you view retail being able to trade equity into [indiscernible] and single stock, of course. And do you think there's literally enough tools for them to do that now without the need for perpetual?

Terrence Duffy

Yes, Brian, again, as I said earlier, I don't want to expand too much further on the argument of perpetuals if there are swaps or future. So again, as I said earlier, I'll let the courts make that decision. As far as systemic risk that you're referring to and I made that comment, I made that comment in reference to the leverage part of perpetuals that have been traded overseas. I made the comment when the amount of leverage was anywhere from 25%, 50% to 250% leverage that are being traded on some of these overseas platforms, not in the U.S. what I said there's a systemic risk. I think that's what you're referring to. As far as single stock futures, what was your question on that one, Brian?

Brian Bedell

Just as a -- I get two-parter there. another tool, obviously, for retail to trade this, and that's good to see. But also there, I guess, do you have the same view on perpetuals for single stocks. And I guess, since you mentioned leverage, if the leverage was contained dramatically, say, less than 10x, I'm thinking that number up, it's something very low, would that change your view on the systemic riskiness of the product?

Terrence Duffy

Yes, Brian, I don't ever give an opinion on changing my view until I actually see something in writing that suggests what it's going to be. So a lot of people can make a lot of comments about what they think it's going to be. So why don't you disagree to it? I don't operate that way I never have. So I will wait until I see what they are proposing, if they are proposing something as it relates to leverage caps or things of that nature. But I've not seen anything so it's really difficult for me to make a comment to you on that product.

As it relates to the opportunity for retail on single stock futures, I said it earlier, and I truly believe it, I think this is a product that is going to be widely accepted from the retail participant to the institutional participants. And I think it's going to be something that is well overdue and needed. So I think our client base is looking for it. When you have the last, say, 5 years to 7 years, with the MAG 7, MAG 9, whatever you want to call it any single day, for people to have single stock features on some of these products that trade a big portion of some of these indices, I think will be very attractive for both constituents of retail and institutional. Julie or Tim, do you want to comment further?

Julie Winkler

Yes. I mean I'll just add, Brian, it's certainly -- we are highly focused on just evolving our products. We do -- be positioned to capture retail demand. We saw -- delivered on the retail business, the tenth consecutive quarter of double-digit retail client acquisition growth. We welcomed well over 100,000 new retail traders into our markets in the last quarter, and that was a 40% increase of where we were a year ago.

We are doing that through this product innovation that we talked about on this call. We had a new record in our Nano suite yesterday of over our 121,000 contracts traded. We spoke to the single-stock future success earlier being available 24/7. This is what our clients are demanding and working closely with our retail partner to continue to ramp those education and those marketing efforts through the remainder of the year. We believe, right, this growth is going to be achieved by upholding our rigorous risk management frameworks and that structural integrity that we've talked about on this call, and that is helping to define and really grow our retail business here.

Terrence Duffy

Thank, Julie. Brian, hopefully that addresses some of your questions. And again, I don't duck any questions. So hopefully, that gives you some...

Operator

The next question is from Ashish Sabadra with RBC Capital Markets.

William Qi

This is Will Qi on for Ashish Sabadra. Maybe a quick question on the new launched NHL future sports indices and their corresponding future instruments. Seems to be kind of an interesting position to step away from kind of the sports in that you guys don't want to get involved in. It's kind of aligned with the IOSCO framework for benchmarks. But with the early days of the month in, what's the kind of early traction you're seeing with that product. Is it coming from institutional demand? Is there any retail demand? What the kind of, I guess, runway you expect for that?

Terrence Duffy

That's a good question, William. Thank you. It is a new product. So we don't want to judge it too early in the season. I'll let Tim go ahead and make a comment as it relates to the overseas businesses.

Tim McCourt

Thanks, Terry, and thanks, Will, for your question. I think what's interesting about this opportunity and partnering with future sports and trying to bring risk management and access to professional sports industry and economy in the U.S. is that this is different in the sense this is based on the statistical performance of the teams that, as you point out, are indexed [indiscernible] IOSCO principles and guidelines. And when we look at building new risk management capabilities, one of the first things to do is work with the market to ascribe that transparent, trusted build time price of what that risk is valued at, at any given moment and then build the product ecosystem around it. And that's why we're excited about the opportunity.

And then when we look at how this can be used it is very attractive on the institutional grade front. When you think about the -- if you read some of the reports, the certain $50 billion U.S. sports value per year, that, that community [indiscernible] an unmet need to manage those associated risks, to hedge that related to the operation of venues to the performance of that team. So it's really interesting to be able to introduce these products. So there a lot of products, it's really about bringing that diversified participant mix to it. We are also working on the individual size contracts and working with our retail partners to make sure that those smaller-sized individuals can access these markets and also hedge their needs. So we're excited about the opportunity. It's early days, just a few weeks in, but we're excited and look forward to continuing to work with FutureSports to bring risk management to the sports industry here in the U.S.

Operator

The next question is from Michael Cyprus with Morgan Stanley.

Michael Cyprys

I just wanted to ask about the $100 billion of margin efficiencies that you mentioned that seems to be up quite a bit from a year or even 2 years ago. I was hoping you could elaborate on the drivers of that expansion over the past year. How much of that relates to simply more activity on the platform versus the impact of newer initiatives like the FICC cross-margining? And as you look out over the next couple of years, like what newer initiatives do you think could be most meaningful to take that higher at say, flat volumes?

Terrence Duffy

Could go higher. I like that one, Mike. Go ahead, Lynne.

Lynne Fitzpatrick

Yes. So it's really broad-based, Mike, which is what's important. So you're going to have the increased level of activity, the increased level of open interest. You're seeing growth across all different asset classes. You did mention some of the specific extensions to cross margining, which Mike can touch on, we're definitely in good success on the fixed gross margining as well as swap offset [indiscernible] rates. But we're seeing growth in the equities complex. We're seeing growth in the energy offset as well as the rate component. So it's really across the base. But Mike, why don't you cut out a specific [indiscernible]?

Michael Dennis

Yes. I appreciate it, Lynne. And Michael, thanks for the question. I'm going to touch a little bit on portfolio margins related to our Swap business, and then I'll also talk about some growth trends that we're seeing in our CME [indiscernible] margin program now that FCM partners are taking advantage of the savings with cascading that down to client accounts. So if you look at portfolio margining in our Swaps business, Q3 resulted in a new record. We saw a new daily savings of $14 billion occurring on September 30. That was a record. I would say if we look at savings in September, that averaged $13.2 billion, and that was up 58% versus September of 2025. The new clients joining our portfolio margining program, have really contributed to that savings.

And just to put that into perspective, in 2024, that swap savings number was around $7.2 billion, $7.3 billion per day. It's closer to $14 billion. So we've seen a lot of growth there. If we look at our CME Fix cross-margining program, we have about 24 clearing members currently registered for the program, and we expect there to be a ramp-up period as FCM complete operational readiness. Firms are very engaged. They're meeting with us. Many of them are targeting Q4 to be fully up and running for that cross-margining program prior to the treasury and repo clearing mandate. But we're seeing strong growth there. September average daily savings in the program was $2.3 billion a day, and we saw a record day in Q3 of $2.7 billion. So that's kind of come off that [indiscernible] number that we've talked about in the beginning of the year. I just want to highlight where we see growth, particularly in the rates environment.

Terrence Duffy

And let me just touch for a second because I think we talk a lot about the rates, but I think the equities is such a huge part of that $100 billion. Tim, you can give you a little color on that as well.

Tim McCourt

Yes. Thanks, Terry. And Michael, thanks for the question. I think when we look at the equity savings almost coming just under $47 billion for Q3 that's up substantially versus the levels put up in the prior quarters and in 2025. And that comes from two main things. One is the the base offset that we have in our base F&O at CME Group, which is just under $42 billion. And we also have the CME OCC cross-market agreement which delivered a little over $5 billion this quarter. And I think what's interesting -- I might go to your question is when we look at in [indiscernible] complex where some of those savings are coming from.

If we look at all of 2026, about 60% of the increase is coming from new positions established at CME Group and about 40% from rising index levels or rising asset levels and margin being posted at CME. So it's really encouraging to see that coming from that organic new activity and risk being moved to CME Group to capture and take advantage of these capital efficiencies. And to be a little bit more color on that.

One prime example of how the clients and the marketplace is taking advantage. We look at the growth of our swap -- OTC swap alternative products of CME Group, that average daily open interest in Q3 of products like our dividend futures, dividend options and our adjusted interest rate on return futures, that OI grew 30% year-over-year to 2.6 million contracts, or about just under $500 billion of additional open interest [indiscernible] or contract value in open interest being moved to CME. And this is a continuation of a long-standing trend at CME Group of futurizing, swap market and bringing new flow and new participants to the equity complex at CME Group to take advantage of these capital efficiencies.

Operator

And the last question in the queue is from Simon Clinch with Rothschild & Co Redburn.

Simon Alistair Clinch

A bit of a sort of broader question here. As we think about the retail platform and perhaps some [FCMs]. Eventually moving to explore launching products and they're in right, be it prediction market, perpetals or even another option, perhaps. But as that happened, how do you expect the relationship between CME and those partners develop where the economic incentive becomes more prevalent for them to steer volume towards their in-house products? Where there are more of the economics. Just kind of curious as your view on that?

Terrence Duffy

Yes. Thanks, Simon, for the question. I'd be speculating at that. But when we just got done speaking about $100-plus billion of efficiencies, that's really difficult to replicate with a lot of the things that we have done. Retail traditionally does not carry much open interest. As you know, we've said this historically, 94% of CME's business is institutionally driven. So again, I think when you're looking at -- what you're suggesting as platforms listing their own products, is that more attractive to coming CME. You need to have an ecosystem of liquidity from the biggest institutions in the world that are at CME. We cited that through our open interest that retail needs to participate in.

Retail trading with just retail and crops is not a long-term for any particular product. So you need to have the -- all the different participants coming in. So I think our value proposition is strong and those same participants that you're referring to are very, very large as the CME. And I think they benefited [indiscernible] by being here at CME, participating in those liquidity pools, generating those efficiencies and for themselves benefiting their own bottom line. So again, I think what we are doing is a value-added proposition. And again, very difficult to replicate, and it moves that we have made historically. But again, I think you can't stress enough the ecosystem, how important it is. And just to think that retail [indiscernible] would is long-term proposition for a successful market. I have not seen one in my 46 years in the business.

Operator

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

Terrence Duffy

Thank you very much. We appreciate everyone participating in the call, we are very proud of our record quarter today. It's a very dangerous world out there, with the risk management continuing to be a big part of it. I hope everyone stays safe and healthy, and thank you very much for participating in today's call.

Operator

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