Item 5. MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES
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Item 5. MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES
Class A Common Stock
Our Class A common stock is currently listed on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol "CME." As of February 6, 2019, there were approximately 7,100 holders of record of our Class A common stock.
Class B Common Stock
Our Class B common stock is not listed on a national securities exchange or traded in an organized over-the-counter market. Each class of our Class B common stock is associated with a membership in a specific division of our CME exchange. CME's rules provide exchange members with trading rights and the ability to use or lease these trading rights. Each share of our Class B common stock can be transferred only in connection with the transfer of the associated trading rights.
Class B shares and the associated trading rights are bought and sold or leased through our membership department. Although our Class B shareholders have special voting rights, because our Class B shares have the same equitable interest in our earnings and the same dividend payments as our Class A shares, we expect that the market price of our Class B common stock, if reported separately from the associated trading rights, would be primarily determined by the value of our Class A common stock. As of February 6, 2019, there were approximately 1,560 holders of record of our Class B common stock.
PERFORMANCE GRAPH
The following graph and table compares the cumulative five-year total return provided to shareholders on our Class A common stock relative to the cumulative total returns of the S&P 500 index and our customized peer group. The peer group includes CBOE Holdings, Inc., IntercontinentalExchange Group, Inc. and Nasdaq, Inc. An investment of $100 (with reinvestment of all dividends) is assumed to have been made in our Class A common stock, in the peer group and the S&P 500 index on December 31, 2013, and its relative performance is tracked through December 31, 2018.

The stock price performance included in this graph is not necessarily indicative of future stock price performance.
| 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | |||||||||||||||
| CME Group Inc. | $ | 118.32 | $ | 127.40 | $ | 170.63 | $ | 225.79 | $ | 298.31 | |||||||||
| S&P 500 | 113.69 | 115.26 | 129.05 | 157.22 | 150.33 | ||||||||||||||
| Peer Group | 106.16 | 124.56 | 141.16 | 183.02 | 187.01 |
Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities
On November 2, 2018, CME Group and CME London Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, completed their previously announced acquisition of NEX Group plc (NEX). The acquisition of NEX was effected by means of a scheme of arrangement under Part 26 of the U.K. Companies Act 2006. On November 5, 2018, as part of the consideration for the acquisition, the Company issued to NEX shareholders 16,926,582 shares of Company Class A Common Stock following the completion of the acquisition on November 2, 2018. The issuance of these shares was not registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (Securities Act) or any state securities laws and was made in reliance on an exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act pursuant to Section 3(a)(10) of the Securities Act.
Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities
| Period | Total Number of Shares (or Units) Purchased(1) | Average Price Paid Per Share (or Unit) | Total Number of Shares (or Units) Purchased as Part of Publicly Announced Plans or Programs | Maximum Number (or Approximate Dollar Value) of Shares (or Units) that May Yet Be Purchased Under the Plans or Programs (in millions) | ||||||||||
| October 1 to October 31 | 5 | $ | 181.22 | — | $ | — | ||||||||
| November 1 to November 30 | 16 | 183.75 | — | — | ||||||||||
| December 1 to December 31 | 240 | 187.64 | — | — | ||||||||||
| Total | 261 | — |
| (1) | Shares purchased consist of an aggregate of 261 shares of Class A common stock surrendered to satisfy employee tax obligations upon the vesting of restricted stock. |
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