CME GROUP INC. (CME)

ITEM 2. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

The following discussion is provided as a supplement to, and should be read in conjunction with, the accompanying unaudited consolidated financial statements and notes in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, filed with the SEC on February 26, 2026.

References in this discussion and analysis to “we” and “our” are to CME Group Inc. (CME Group) and its consolidated subsidiaries, collectively. References to “exchange” are to Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (CME), the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc. (CBOT), New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. (NYMEX), and Commodity Exchange, Inc. (COMEX), collectively, unless otherwise noted.

RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

Financial Highlights

The following summarizes significant changes in our financial performance for the periods presented.

Revenues

Clearing and Transaction Fees

Futures and Options Contracts

The following table summarizes our total contract volume, revenue and average rate per contract for futures and options. Total contract volume includes contracts that are traded on our exchange and cleared through our clearing house and certain cleared-only contracts. Volume is measured in round turns, which is considered a completed transaction that involves a purchase and an offsetting sale of a contract. Average rate per contract is determined by dividing total clearing and transaction fees by total contract volume. Contract volume and average rate per contract disclosures below exclude trading volume for event contracts, the cash markets business as well as interest rate swaps.

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We estimate the following net changes in clearing and transaction fees based on the changes in total contract volumes and the changes in average rate per contract for futures and options during the second quarter and first six months of 2026 when compared with the same periods in 2025.

Average rate per contract is impacted by our rate structure, including volume-based incentives; product mix; trading venue; and the percentage of volume executed by customers who are members compared with non-member customers. Due to the relationship between average rate per contract and contract volume, the change in clearing and transaction fees attributable to changes in each is only an approximation.

Contract Volume

The following table summarizes average daily contract volume. Contract volume can be influenced by many factors, including political and economic conditions, the regulatory environment and market competition.

Overall market volatility was high in early 2026 due to the heightened geopolitical conflict in the Middle East, which has caused a ripple effect throughout the world economy. In addition, uncertainty remained high within the energy and metals markets as the Middle East conflict caused significant supply disruptions and led market participants to turn to precious metals amid this uncertainty. However, in the second quarter of 2026, overall market volatility subsided relative to periods of very high volatility earlier in the year as market uncertainty tapered. We believe these factors contributed to volume remaining relatively flat in the second quarter of 2026 when compared to the same period in 2025 and an increase in volume in the first six months of 2026 when compared with the same period in 2025.

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Interest Rate Products

The following table summarizes average daily contract volume for our key interest rate products.

In the second quarter of 2026, interest rate contract volume was lower compared with the same period in 2025 due to a decrease in market volatility. We believe this was due to more certainty surrounding the Federal Reserve's future interest rate policy decisions.

Overall interest rate contract volume increased in the first six months of 2026 when compared with same period in 2025 due to periods of high market volatility. We believe this was due to the heightened geopolitical conflict in the Middle East, which led to initial uncertainty surrounding the Federal Reserve's future interest rate policy decisions.

Equity Index and Cryptocurrency Products

The following table summarizes average daily contract volume for our key equity index and cryptocurrency products.

Equity index contract volumes increased in the second quarter and first six months of 2026 when compared with the same periods in 2025. We believe these increases were due to the geopolitical conflict in the Middle East in early 2026, which caused significant uncertainty throughout the equity markets. In addition, market shifts in the Nasdaq-100 and Russell 2000 resulted in additional volume within both complexes.

Our cryptocurrency contract volumes increased in the second quarter and first six months of 2026 when compared with the same periods in 2025. We believe the increased volatility resulted in a broader cryptocurrency market repricing.

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Foreign Exchange Products

The following table summarizes average daily contract volume for our key foreign exchange products.

In the second quarter and first six months of 2026, overall foreign exchange volumes decreased when co

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ITEM 7.    MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

INTRODUCTION

Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations is organized as follows:

•Executive Summary: Includes an overview of our business; current economic, competitive and regulatory trends relevant to our business; our current business strategy; and our primary sources of operating and non-operating revenues and expenses.

•Critical Accounting Policies: Provides an explanation of accounting policies that may have a significant impact on our financial results and the estimates, assumptions and risks associated with those policies.

•Results of Operations: Includes an analysis of our 2025 financial results and a discussion of any known events or trends that are likely to impact future results.

•Liquidity and Capital Resources: Includes a discussion of our future cash requirements, capital resources, significant planned expenditures and financing arrangements.

References in this discussion and analysis to "we" and "our" are to CME Group Inc. (CME Group) and its consolidated subsidiaries, collectively. References to "exchange" are to Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (CME), the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc. (CBOT), New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. (NYMEX) and Commodity Exchange, Inc. (COMEX), collectively, unless otherwise noted.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Business Overview

CME Group, a Delaware stock corporation, is the holding company for CME, CBOT, NYMEX, COMEX, NEX Group plc (NEX) and their respective subsidiaries. The holding company structure is designed to provide strategic and operational flexibility. CME Group's Class A common stock is listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market (Nasdaq) under the ticker symbol "CME."

Our exchange consists of designated contract markets for the trading of futures and options contracts. We also clear futures, options and swaps contracts through our clearing house. Futures contracts, options contracts and swaps contracts provide investors with vehicles for protecting against, and potentially profiting from, price changes in financial instruments and physical commodities.

We are a global company with customer access available virtually all over the world. Our customers consist of professional traders, financial institutions, individual and institutional investors, major corporations, manufacturers, producers, governments and central banks. Customers include both members of the exchange and non-members.

We offer our customers the opportunity to trade futures contracts and options contracts on a range of products, including those based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, metals and agricultural commodities. Through our cash markets business, we offer fixed income trading through BrokerTec and foreign currency trading through EBS. Our products provide a means for hedging, speculating and allocating assets. We identify new products by monitoring economic trends and their impact on the risk management and speculative needs of our existing and prospective customers.

Most of our products are available for trading through our electronic trading platforms. These execution facilities offer our customers immediate trade execution and price transparency. In addition, trades can be executed through privately negotiated transactions that are cleared and settled through our clearing house.

Our clearing house clears, settles and guarantees futures and options contracts traded through our exchanges, in addition to cleared swaps products. Our clearing house's performance guarantee is an important function of our business. Because of this guarantee, our customers do not need to evaluate the credit of each potential counterparty or limit themselves to a selected set of counterparties. This flexibility increases the potential liquidity available for each trade. Additionally, the substitution of our clearing house as the counterparty to every transaction allows our customers to establish a position with one party and offset the position with another party. This contract offsetting process provides our customers with flexibility in establishing and adjusting positions and provides for collateral and margining efficiencies. Certain BrokerTec contracts are cleared at third-party clearing houses.

Business Trends

Economic Environment. Our customers continue to use our markets as an effective and transparent means to manage risk and meet their investment needs. Trading activity in our centralized markets has fluctuated due to the ongoing uncertainty in the financial markets, fluctuations in the availability of credit, variations in the amount of assets under management as well as the

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Federal Reserve Bank’s interest rate policy. We continue to maintain high quality and diverse products as well as various clearing and market data services, which support our customers in any economic environment.

Competitive Environment. Our industry is competitive and we continue to encounter competition in all aspects of our business. We expect competition to continue to intensify, especially in light of ongoing regulatory developments in the financial services industry. Competition is influenced by our brand and reputation; the efficiency and security of our clearing, settlement and support services; depth and liquidity of our markets; capital and margin efficiencies; diversity of product offerings, including frequency and quality of new product development and innovative services; our ability to position and expand upon existing products to address changing market needs; efficient and seamless customer experience; transparency, reliability, anonymity and security of transaction processing; the regulatory environment; connectivity, accessibility, flexibility in execution methods, and distribution; and technology capability and innovation, as well as overall transaction costs. We believe we are very well positioned with respect to these factors. Our asset classes contain products designed to address differing risk management needs, and customers are able to achieve operational and capital efficiencies by accessing our diverse products through our platforms and our clearing house. We compete in a large and expanding financial services trading, clearing and settlement marketplace globally. As markets continue to evolve, we will continue to adapt our trading technology and clearing services to meet the needs of our customers. The competitive environment to which we are subject is discussed in "Item 1 - Business" beginning on page 10.

Regulatory Environment. Our exchange-traded derivatives exchanges and other businesses are regulated and we serve a customer base that includes regulated institutions and individuals. Developments in the regulatory environment have the potential to significantly impact our business. Compliance with regulations may require us and our customers to dedicate significant financial and operational resources, which could adversely affect our profitability. The regulatory environment to which we are subject is discussed in "Item 1 - Business" beginning on page 12.

Business Strategy

Our strategy focuses on maximizing futures and options growth globally, diversifying our business and revenues and delivering unparalleled customer efficiencies and operational excellence, including through our partnership with Google Cloud. This strategy allows us to continue to develop into a more broadly diversified financial exchange that provides trading and clearing solutions across a wide range of products and asset classes. Our strategic initiatives are discussed in "Item 1 - Business" beginning on page 7.

Revenues

Clearing and transaction fees. A majority of our revenue is derived from clearing and transaction fees, which include electronic trading fees, surcharges for privately negotiated transactions and other volume-related charges for exchange-traded and over-the-counter (OTC) contracts. Because clearing and transaction fees are assessed on a per-contract or notional value basis, revenues and profitability fluctuate with changes in contract volume. In addition to the business trends noted earlier, our contract volume, and consequently our revenues, tend to increase during periods of economic and geopolitical uncertainty as our customers seek to manage their exposure to, or speculate on, the market volatility resulting from that uncertainty.

While volume has the most significant impact on our clearing and transaction fees revenue, there are four other factors that also influence this source of revenue:

•rate structure;

•product mix;

•venue; and

•the percentage of trades executed by customers who are members compared with non-member customers.

Rate structure. Customers benefit from volume discounts and limits on fees as part of our effort to increase liquidity in certain products. We offer various incentive programs to promote trading and clearing in various products and geographic locations. We may periodically change fees, volume discounts, fee limits and member discounts, perhaps significantly, based on our review of operations and the business environment.

Product mix. We offer exchange-traded futures and options contracts as well as cleared-only interest rate swap contracts and event contracts. We also offer foreign exchange spot and forward contracts and fixed income products. Rates are varied by product in order to optimize revenue on existing products and to encourage contract volume upon introduction of new products.

Venue. Our exchange and platforms are an international marketplace that brings together buyers and sellers mainly through our electronic trading as well as through open outcry trading and privately negotiated transactions. Any customer who is guaranteed by a clearing firm and who agrees to be bound by our exchange rules is able to obtain direct access to our

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electronic platforms. Open outcry trading is conducted exclusively by our members, who may execute trades on behalf of customers or for themselves. Open outcry trading is limited to Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) options products.

Typically, customers submitting trades through our electronic platforms are charged fees for using the platforms in addition to the fees assessed on all transactions executed on our exchange. Customers entering into privately negotiated transactions also incur additional charges beyond the fees assessed on other transactions.

Member/non-member mix. Generally, member customers are charged lower fees than our non-member customers. Holding all other factors constant, revenue decreases if the percentage of trades executed by members increases, and increases if the percentage of non-member trades increases.

Clearing and transaction fees for cash markets business. Our cash markets business provides matching services whereby we match a buyer and seller of financial instruments to allow both parties to complete the trade bilaterally or through a third-party clearing house. We are not involved in the settlement of the contract but charge a transaction fee generally based on volume or notional value of the trade for providing the matching service. BrokerTec Americas also generates revenue from a matched principal business. This business serves as a fully matched counterparty to offsetting positions entered into by clients on our electronic trading platform to facilitate anonymity and access to clearing and settlement. Revenue is generated from this business generally on a transaction fee basis.

Other sources. Revenue is also derived from other sources, including market data and information services and other various services related to our exchange operations.

Market data and information services. We receive market data and information services revenue from the dissemination of our market data to subscribers. Subscribers ca

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