CME Group 10-K 2024-12-31

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

(Mark One)

For the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2024

OR

Commission File Number 001-31553

CME GROUP INC.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (312) 930-1000

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: Class B common stock, Class B-1, $0.01 par value; Class B common stock, Class B-2, $0.01 par value; Class B common stock, Class B-3, $0.01 par value; and Class B common stock, Class B-4, $0.01 par value.

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes ☐ No ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of "large accelerated filer," "accelerated filer," "smaller reporting company" and "emerging growth company" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange

Act.

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management's assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☒

If securities are registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act, indicate by check mark whether the financial statements of the registrant included in the filing reflect the correction of an error to previously issued financial statements. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether any of those error corrections are restatements that required a recovery analysis of incentive-based compensation received by any of the registrant's executive officers during the relevant recovery period pursuant to §240.10D-1(b). ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ☐ No ☒

The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting common equity held by non-affiliates of the registrant as of June 30, 2024, was approximately $70.4 billion (based on the closing price per share of CME Group Inc. Class A common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market (Nasdaq) on such date). The number of shares outstanding of each of the registrant’s classes of common stock as of February 12, 2025 was as follows: 360,354,174 shares of Class A common stock, $0.01 par value; 625 shares of Class B common stock, Class B-1, $0.01 par value; 813 shares of Class B common stock, Class B-2, $0.01 par value; 1,287 shares of Class B common stock, Class B-3, $0.01 par value; and 413 shares of Class B common stock, Class B-4, $0.01 par value.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE:

CME GROUP INC.

ANNUAL REPORT ON FORM 10-K

INDEX

PART I

Certain Terms

All references to "options" or "options contracts" in the text of this document refer to options on futures contracts.

Further information about CME Group and its products can be found at http://www.cmegroup.com. Information made available on our website does not constitute a part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Information about Contract Volume and Average Rate per Contract

All amounts regarding contract volume and average rate per contract are for CME Group's listed futures and options on futures contracts unless otherwise noted.

Trademark Information

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 Limited. OSTTRA is a trademark of MarkitSERV Limited. Dow Jones, Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and S&P are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC, Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, as the case may be, and have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (CME). All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

From time to time, in this Annual Report on Form 10-K as well as in other written reports and verbal statements, we discuss our expectations regarding future performance. These forward-looking statements are identified by their use of terms and phrases such as "believe," "anticipate," "could," "estimate," "intend," "may," "plan," "expect" and similar expressions, including references to assumptions. These forward-looking statements are based on currently available competitive, financial and economic data, current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about the industries in which we operate and management's beliefs and assumptions. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and 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 forward-looking statements. We want to caution you not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Among the factors that might affect our performance are:

• increasing competition by foreign and domestic entities, including increased competition from new entrants into our markets and consolidation of existing entities; our ability to keep pace with rapid technological developments, including our ability to complete the development, implementation and maintenance of the enhanced functionality required by our customers while maintaining reliability and ensuring that such technology is not vulnerable to security risks;

• our ability to continue introducing innovative and competitive new products and services on a timely, cost-effective basis, including through our electronic trading capabilities, and derive revenues that are commensurate with our efforts and expectations, and our ability to maintain the competitiveness of our existing products and services;

• our ability to adjust our fixed costs and expenses if our revenues decline;

• our ability to manage variable costs relating to CME Group's transition to the Google Cloud and minimize duplicative costs during the transition between maintaining the on-premise environment and the Google Cloud environment;

• our ability to maintain existing customers at substantially similar trading levels, develop strategic relationships and attract new customers;

• our ability to expand and globally offer our products and services;

• changes in regulations, including the impact of any changes in laws or government policies with respect to our products or services or our industry, such as any changes to regulations and policies that require increased financial and operational resources from us or our customers, as well as the impact of tariffs and tax policy changes, restrictions on our ability to offer CME Group products and services in specific geographies or to specific customers or limitations or changes in underlying/physical product flows across geographies;

• the costs associated with protecting our intellectual property rights and our ability to operate our business without violating the intellectual property rights of others;

• decreases in revenue from our market data as a result of decreased demand or changes to regulations in various jurisdictions;

• changes in our rate per contract due to shifts in the mix of the products traded, the trading venue and the mix of customers (whether the customer receives member or non-member fees or participates in one of our various incentive programs) and the impact of our tiered pricing structure;

• the ability of our credit and liquidity risk management practices to adequately protect us from the credit risks of clearing firms and other counterparties, and to satisfy the margin and liquidity requirements associated with the BrokerTec matched principal business;

• the ability of our compliance and risk management programs to effectively monitor and manage our risks, including our ability to prevent errors and misconduct and protect our infrastructure against security breaches and misappropriation of our intellectual property assets;

• our dependence on third-party providers and exposure to risk through third parties, including risks related to the performance, reliability and security of technology used by our third-party providers and third-party providers that our clients and third-parties rely on;

• our reliance on third-party distribution partners, including independent software vendors (ISVs), Futures Commission Merchants (FCMs), introducing brokers, broker-dealers around the world, regulatory reporting and data distributors and platform operators, and other partners, for facilitating trading and for market data information, and potential impacts from changes in their business models and priorities;

• volatility in commodity, equity and fixed income prices, and price volatility of financial benchmarks and instruments such as interest rates, equity indices, fixed income instruments and foreign exchange rates; economic, social, political and market conditions, including the volatility of the capital and credit markets and the impact of economic conditions on the trading activity of our current and potential customers;

• our ability to accommodate increases in contract volume and market data and order transaction traffic across the entire trade cycle and the ability to implement enhancements without failure or degradation of the performance of our trading and clearing systems and meeting our regulatory reporting obligations;

• our ability to execute our growth strategy and maintain our growth effectively;

• our ability to manage the risks, control the costs and achieve the synergies associated with our strategy for acquisitions, investments and alliances, including those associated with the performance of our joint ventures with S&P Dow Jones (S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC) in index services, our primary business and distribution partners’ actions and our partnership with Google, including our ability to manage the successful implementation of our agreements with Google and our data center partners;

• variances in earnings on cash accounts and collateral that our clearing house holds for its clients;

• impact of CME Group pricing/fee level and structure and incentive changes;

• impact of aggregation services and internalization on trade flow and volumes;

• any negative financial impacts from changes to the terms of intellectual property and index rights;

• our ability to continue to generate funds and/or manage our indebtedness to allow us to continue to invest in our business;

• industry, channel partner and customer consolidation and/or concentration;

• decreases in trading and clearing activity;

• the imposition of a transaction tax or user fee on futures and options transactions and/or repeal of the 60/40 tax treatment of such transactions;

• increases in effective tax rates, borrowing costs or changes in tax policy;

• our ability to maintain our brand and reputation; and

• the unfavorable resolution of material legal proceedings.

For a detailed discussion of these and other factors that might affect our performance, see Item 1A. of this Report beginning on page 16.

CME Group enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and over-the-counter (OTC) products, optimize portfolios, and analyze data - empowering market participants worldwide the ability to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group provides primary price discovery and referential pricing information through its market data in a variety of formats, including real-time, historical and derived data for customers in both listed and cash products. CME Group also offers industry-leading research and analytics tools to provide customers with market education resources. In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers.

GENERAL DEVELOPMENT OF BUSINESS

CME was founded in 1898 as a not-for-profit corporation. It established its clearing house in 1919, which is operated as part of CME. CME demutualized in 2000, and in 2002 its parent company, CME Group, completed an initial public offering of its Class A common stock (Nasdaq: CME). CME Group subsequently acquired CBOT Holdings, Inc. in 2007, NYMEX Holdings, Inc. (NYMEX and COMEX) in 2008, the Kansas City Board of Trade in 2012 and NEX Group plc (NEX) in 2018. The combination with NEX expanded our global customer base and product offerings through the complementary combination of CME Group’s exchange-traded derivative products and NEX’s cash and OTC products. It also created a leading, client-centric, global markets company, generating capital efficiencies across futures, cash and OTC products for market participants seeking to lower their cost of trading and better manage risk. Our principal executive offices are located at 20 South Wacker Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60606, our telephone number is 312-930-1000 and our website is cmegroup.com.

DESCRIPTION OF BUSINESS

CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange (FX), and agricultural, energy and metals commodities. We also offer cash and repo fixed income trading via BrokerTec, and spot and OTC FX trading via EBS. Additionally, we operate one of the world’s leading central counterparty clearing providers.

Derivatives Exchange Business: Through our derivatives exchanges and clearing house, we believe our customers prefer CME Group's diversity of products, liquidity, price transparency and technological capabilities. Market liquidity - or the ability of a market to absorb the execution of large purchases or sales quickly and efficiently - is key to attracting and retaining customers and contributing to a market's success. Our products provide a means for hedging, speculation and asset allocation related to the risks associated with, among other things, interest rate sensitive instruments, equity ownership, changes in the value of foreign currency and changes in the prices of agricultural, energy and metal commodities.

• CME's** product slate includes agricultural, equities, FX, OTC Interest Rate Swaps complex, cryptocurrencies/alternative investments and interest rate products, including Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) futures and options, Fed Funds futures and options, livestock and cash-settled contracts based on the S&P 500, Micro E-mini Equity Index contracts, Nasdaq-100, FTSE Russell, Nikkei and Bitcoin and Ether futures and options.

• CBOT's** product slate consists of agricultural, equities and interest rate products, including contracts for United States (U.S.) Treasury futures, soybean, corn and wheat and contracts based on the Dow Jones Industrial Index.

• NYMEX's** product slate consists of energy and metals products, including contracts for crude oil, natural gas, heating oil (or low sulfur diesel), gasoline, emissions (GEO, N-GEO and C-GEO), platinum and palladium.

• COMEX's** product slate consists of metals products, including contracts for gold, silver, copper and other base, ferrous and battery metals.

We believe the breadth and diversity of our products and services lines are beneficial to our customers and CME Group's overall performance. Our asset classes contain products designed to address differing risk management needs, and customers are able to manage risks and achieve operational and capital efficiencies by accessing our diverse products through our platforms and our clearing house.

CME Group products are traded primarily through CME Globex, as well as by open outcry in Chicago for SOFR options and through privately negotiated transactions.

We strive to provide the most flexible and scalable platforms to support the operational and capacity needs of our business along with the delivery of innovative technology solutions to the marketplace. Our CME Globex electronic trading system operates our central limit order book markets and is available on a global basis nearly 24 hours a day throughout the trading week. The CME Globex platform is accessible through a wide variety of vendor-provided and custom-built trading systems that benefit from our open application programming interface approach. For electronic and privately negotiated markets, we offer brokers and customers the CME Direct platform for arranging, executing, recording and risk-managing trades across all six major asset classes. We also provide the functionality to connect to CME Direct on a mobile device through our CME Direct Mobile application with full trading and on-the-go order management capabilities.

Together, our platforms offer:

• certainty and flexibility of execution;

• extensive capabilities to facilitate complex and demanding trading;

• direct market access;

• open access, price transparency and anonymity;

• convenience and efficiency;

• connectivity through highly secure, resilient and low-latency network options;

• access to market data; and

• global distribution, including connectivity through high-speed international telecommunications hubs in key financial centers.

We maintain comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery plans, as well as facilities designed to provide nearly continuous availability of our markets in the event of a business disruption or disaster. We also maintain incident and crisis management plans that address responses to disruptive events.

The customer base of our derivatives exchanges includes professional traders, financial institutions, institutional and individual investors, major corporations, manufacturers, producers, governments and central banks. Customers may be members of one or more of our exchanges. Rights to directly access our derivatives markets will depend upon the nature of the customer, such as whether the entity or individual is a member of one of our exchanges or has executed an agreement with us for direct access.

U.S. trading rights and privileges are exchange-specific. Open outcry trading is conducted exclusively by our members. Membership on one of our derivatives exchanges also enables a customer to trade specific products at lower fees. Under the terms of the organizational documents of our exchanges, our members have certain rights that relate primarily to trading right protections, certain trading fee protections and certain membership benefit protections. In 2024, 85% of our contract volume was from trades by our members.

CME Clearing Business: Through our clearing house operated by CME, we provide clearing and settlement services for a broad range of exchange-traded futures and options on futures contracts and OTC derivatives. Our integrated clearing function is designed to ensure the safety and the soundness of our markets by serving as the counterparty to every trade, becoming the buyer to each seller and the seller to each buyer, and limiting counterparty credit risk. The clearing house marks open positions to market at least twice a trading day, requiring payments from clearing firms whose positions have lost value and making payments to clearing firms whose positions have gained value. For select cleared

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In addition to the other information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, you should carefully consider the factors discussed below, which are the risks we believe are material at this time. These risks could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. These risks and uncertainties are not the only ones facing us. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently believe to be immaterial may also adversely affect our business.

RISKS RELATING TO OUR INDUSTRY

Our business is subject to the impact of global market, economic and political conditions that are beyond our control and that could significantly impact our business and make our financial results more volatile.

Our revenue is substantially derived from fees for transactions executed and cleared in our markets. The trading volumes in our markets are directly affected by domestic and international factors that are beyond our control, including:

• economic, political and geopolitical market conditions, including the instability caused by wars;

• legislative and regulatory changes, including any direct or indirect restrictions on or increased costs associated with trading in our markets or our clearing services;

• broad trends in the industry and financial markets;

• changes in price levels, trading volumes and volatility in the derivatives, cash and OTC markets and in their underlying markets;

• shifts in demand or supply in commodities underlying our products;

• competition;

• changes in government monetary policies and the U.S. Federal Reserve and other international banks' forecasted interest rates;

• availability of capital to our market participants and their appetite for risk-taking;

• levels of assets under our customers' management;

• volatile weather patterns, droughts, natural disasters and other catastrophes;

• pandemics affecting our customer base or our ability to operate our markets; and

• consolidation or expansion in our customer base and within our industry.

Any one or more of these factors may contribute to reduced activity in our markets. Historically, periods of heightened uncertainty have tended to increase our trading volume due to increased hedging activity and the increased need to manage the risks associated with, or speculate on, volatility. However, in the period after a material market disturbance, there may persist extreme uncertainties, which may lead to decreased volume due to factors such as reduced risk exposure, fluctuating interest rates, central bank asset purchase programs and lack of available capital. The shifts in market trading patterns we experienced as a result of the financial crisis of 2008 may or may not recur in the future, and our business will be affected by future economic uncertainties, which may result in decreased trading volume and a more challenging business environment for us. A reduction in overall trading volume or in certain products could render our markets less attractive to market participants as a source of liquidity, which could result in further loss of trading volume and associated transaction-based revenue. Material decreases in trading volume would have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and operating results.

Please see "Item 1A - Risk Factors - Risks Relating To Our Business" beginning on page 20 for additional information.

We operate in a heavily regulated environment that imposes significant costs and competitive burdens on our business, and our failure to maintain compliance with regulations, our status as a regulated entity, or BrokerTec Americas' status as a member in good standing at FICC, could result in the loss of customers, fines or other consequences to our regulated status.

We are primarily subject to the jurisdiction of the regulatory agencies in the U.S., U.K. and E.U. As a result of our global operations, we are also subject to the rules and regulations of other local jurisdictions in which we conduct business and offer our products and services, as appropriate.

Our businesses and those of many of our clients have been and continue to be subject to extensive legislation and regulatory scrutiny, and we face the risk of continued increasing oversight and changes to our regulatory environment and business in the future and have incurred and expect to continue to incur significant costs to comply. Additional new laws or regulations or changes in enforcement practices applicable to our businesses or those of our clients could be imposed in the U.S. or other jurisdictions, which could change, or require us to change, our business practices or the structure of our business, including its current governance, risk oversight or regulatory structure, or impose significant costs on us by, for example, requiring more of our funds to be set aside for the guaranty fund or to meet other compliance requirements. This could adversely affect our ability to compete effectively with other institutions that are not affected in the same way or impact our clients' overall trading volume and demand for our market data and other services. Additionally, regulations imposed on financial institutions or market participants generally may adversely impact their trading activity in our markets. To the extent the legislative and regulatory environment becomes more onerous for us or less beneficial for us or our customers, our business, financial condition and operating results could be negatively affected.

Legislation may be proposed, both domestically and internationally, that could, for example, add a transaction tax on our products or change the way our market participants are taxed on the products they trade on our markets. If such proposals were to become law, they could have a negative impact on our industry and on us by making transactions more costly to market participants, which may reduce trading and could make our markets less competitive, with a resulting negative impact on our business, financial condition and operating results.

If we fail to comply with applicable laws, rules or regulations, we may be subject to censure, fines, cease-and-desist orders, suspension of our business, removal of personnel or other sanctions, including revocation of our designations as a contract market, derivatives clearing organization, swap execution facility, swap data repository, broker-dealer, multilateral trading facility or other regulatory status.

Our broker-dealer and MTF businesses, BrokerTec and EBS, are also extensively regulated in various jurisdictions. These regulatory obligations generally include proper licensing and qualification of the firms and individuals, substantive conduct standards, communication and disclosure rules, monitoring and surveillance, training, capital requirements, supervisory obligations, maintenance of anti-money laundering programs, suspicious activity reporting, risk management standards, trade reporting, and ongoing examinations and reviews. The risks from failing to comply with these regulatory obligations include potential liability and/or disciplinary action against the firm and individuals, monetary penalties and restrictions on future activities.

BrokerTec Americas' matched principal platform facilitates anonymous trading in significant volumes from wholesale market participants, many of which are FICC members and understand that BrokerTec Americas is also a FICC member, such that their trades are expected to be novated promptly to FICC, which will be their ultimate counterparty. A failure of BrokerTec Americas to maintain its membership with FICC could adversely impact the willingness of such participants to continue trading on our platform. As part of maintaining its FICC membership, BrokerTec Americas is required to timely and fully meet all margin calls and other obligations established by FICC, and as such must maintain ready access to sufficient liquidity to satisfy

those obligations. BrokerTec Americas maintains access to liquidity resources it believes will satisfy these obligations in normal and stressed circumstances, but there can be no guarantee it will never experience a shortfall.

Please see "Item 1 - Business - Regulatory Matters" beginning on page 12 for additional information on our areas of regulatory focus.

Some of our clearing house's largest clearing firms have indicated their belief that clearing facilities should not be owned or controlled by exchanges and should be operated as utilities and not for profit. These clearing firms have sought, and may seek in the future, legislative or regulatory changes that would, if adopted, enable them to use alternative clearing services for positions established on our exchanges or to freely move open positions among clearing houses in order to take advantage of our liquidity. Even if they are not successful, these factors may cause them to limit the use of our markets.

Our clearing house seeks to offer customers, intermediaries and clearing firms universal access in order to maximize the efficient use of capital, exercise appropriate oversight of value at risk and maintain operating leverage from clearing activities on our exchanges. Our strategic business plan for our futures and options business is to operate an efficient and transparent vertically-integrated transaction execution, clearing and settlement business. Some of our clearing firms have expressed the view that clearing firms should control the governance of clearing houses or that clearing houses should be operated as utilities rather than as part of for-profit enterprises. Some of these firms, along with certain industry associations, have sought, and may seek in the future, legislative or regulatory changes to be adopted that would facilitate mechanisms or policies that allow market participants to transfer positions of futures or options from an exchange-owned clearing house to a clearing house owned and controlled by clearing firms. If these legislative or regulatory changes are adopted, our business, financial condition and operating results could be adversely affected.

We face intense competition from other companies. If we are not able to successfully compete, our business, financial condition and operating results will be materially harmed.

Our industry is highly competitive, and we expect competition to continue to intensify. We encounter competition in all aspects of our business, including from entities having substantially greater capital and resources, offering a wide range of products and services and in some cases operating under a different and possibly less stringent regulatory regime. We face competition from other futures, securities and securities option exchanges; OTC markets; clearing organizations; consortia formed by our members and large industry participants; swap execution facilities; alternative trade execution facilities; technology firms, including market data distributors and electronic trading system developers; and others. Our competitors and potential competitors may have greater financial, marketing, technological and personnel resources than we do.

Our competitors may:

• respond more quickly to competitive pressures and opportunities, including responses based upon their corporate governance structures, which may be more flexible and efficient than our corporate governance structure;

• develop products that are preferred by our customers compared to those offered by CME Group;

• develop risk transfer products that compete with our products;

• price their products and services more competitively;

• develop and expand their network infrastructure and service offerings more efficiently;

• utilize better, more user-friendly or more reliable technology, including artificial intelligence;

• take greater advantage of acquisitions, alliances and other opportunities that provide a competitive advantage;

• more effectively market, promote and sell their products and services;

• better leverage existing relationships with customers and alliance partners or exploit better recognized brand names to market and sell their services; or

• exploit regulatory disparities between traditional, regulated exchanges and alternative markets that benefit from a reduced regulatory burden and lower-cost business model.

If our products, markets and clearing services are not competitive or are viewed as less competitive, our business, financial condition and operating results could be adversely affected. A decline in our fees or loss of customers could lower our revenues, which would adversely affect our profitability.

Please see "Item 1 - Business - Competition" beginning on page 10 for additional information on the competitive environment and its potential impact on our business.

Our trading volume, and consequently our revenues and profits, would be adversely affected if we are unable to retain our current customers at substantially similar trading levels or attract new customers.

The success of our business depends, in part, on our ability to maintain and increase trading volume in our markets. To do so, we must maintain and expand our product offerings, our customer base and our trade execution facilities, our pre-and post-trade services and clearing facilities. Our success also depends on our ability to offer competitive prices and services in an increasingly price-sensitive business. For example, some of our competitors have engaged in aggressive pricing strategies in the past, such as lowering the fees they charge for taking liquidity and increasing liquidity payments or rebates. We cannot provide assurances that we will be able to continue to expand our products and services, that we will be able to retain our current customers or attract new customers or that we will not be required to modify our pricing structure to compete effectively. Changes in our pricing structure may result in a decrease to our profit margin.

Our clearing firm clients must meet certain capital requirements and must deposit collateral to meet performance bond and guaranty fund requirements. There is no guarantee the collateral deposited will continue to maintain its value. To the extent a clearing member were to experience a decrease in capital and be unable to meet requirements, it may be required to decrease its trading activity.

Additionally, from time to time, certain customers may represent a significant portion of the open interest in our individual product lines or contracts, and a substantial decrease in their trading activity could have a negative impact on the liquidity of the particular product line or contract.

If we fail to maintain trading volume, as a result of a loss of customers or decrease in trading activity; expand our product offerings or execution facilities; or are unable to attract new customers, our business and revenues will be adversely affected. Declines in trading volume may also negatively impact market liquidity, which could lead to further loss of trading volume. Because our cost structure is largely fixed, if demand for our products and services and our resulting revenues decline, we may not be able to adjust our cost structure on a timely basis, and our profitability could be adversely affected.

Our role in the global marketplace places us at greater risk than other public companies for a cyber attack and other cyber-security risks. Our technology, our customers, our people and our third-party service providers are vulnerable to cyber-security threats, which could result in wrongful use of our data or our customers’ data or cause interruptions in our operations, our customers' operations, or our third-party service providers' operations, which could cause us to lose customers and trading volume and result in substantial liabilities. We also could be required to incur significant expense to protect or remediate damage to our systems and/or investigate any alleged attack.

We regard the secure storage and transmission of data and the ability to continuously transact and clear on our electronic trading platforms as critical elements of our operations and our operational resiliency. Our technology, our customers, our people and our third-party service providers may be vulnerable to targeted attacks, such as "phishing" attacks, unauthorized access, fraud, business email compromise, computer viruses, denial of service attacks, terrorism, "ransomware" attacks, attacks created through artificial intelligence, firewall or encryption failures or other security or operational risks. Criminal groups, political activist groups and nation-state actors have targeted the financial services industry in general, including as a result of wars, and our role in the global marketplace places us at significant risk for a cyber attack and other information security threats. While to date we have not experienced cyber incidents that are individually, or in the aggregate, material, we and certain of our third party providers have experienced cyber attacks of varying degrees in the past.

Our usage of mobile, web, and cloud technologies, such as those pursuant to our partnership with Google Cloud, may increase our risk of a cyber attack. Our security defenses may also be impacted or breached due to employee error, malfeasance, system errors or vulnerabilities. Additionally, outside parties may attempt to fraudulently induce employees, users, customers or our third party providers to disclose sensitive information in order to gain access to our technology systems and data, or our customers’ systems and data, or our third parties' systems and data. Any such breach or unauthorized access could result in significant legal and financial exposure, damage to our reputation, and a loss of confidence in the services we provide that could potentially have an adverse effect on our business, while resulting in regulatory penalties or the imposition of additional obligations by regulators or others. The regulatory environment related to information security, privacy, data collection, data usage and use of artificial intelligence is increasingly rigorous and complex, and any failure to comply may carry significant penalties and reputational damage.

We have designed our cyber defense program to mitigate such attacks and security risks through administrative, physical and technical safeguards. As part of our global information security and privacy programs, we employ resources to prevent, detect and respond to cyber attacks and security risks that could impact our people, processes and technology infrastructure, including rapid response to zero-day vulnerabilities. However, our security measures or those of our third-party providers, including any cloud-based technologies, may prove insufficient depending upon the attack or threat posed. Any security attack or breach could result in system failures and delays, malfunctions in our operations, loss of customers or lower trading volume, loss of competitive position, damage to our reputation, disruption of our business, legal liability or regulatory fines and significant

costs, which in turn may cause our revenues and earnings to decline and could have a material impact on our financial condition or results of operations. We may be subject to litigation and financial losses that exceed our insurance policy limits or are not covered under any of our current policies.

As a financial services provider, we are subject to significant litigation risk and regulatory liability and penalties.

Many aspects of our business present substantial litigation risks. These risks include, among others, potential liability from disputes over terms of a trade, the claim that a system failure or delay caused monetary losses to a customer, that we entered into an unauthorized transaction, that we provided materially false or misleading statements in connection with a transaction or that we failed to effectively fulfill our regulatory oversight responsibilities. We may be subject to disputes regarding the quality of trade execution, the settlement of trades or other matters relating to our services. We may become subject to these claims as a result of failures or malfunctions of our systems and services we provide. We could incur significant legal expenses defending claims, even those without merit. In addition, an adverse resolution of any future lawsuit or claim against us could have a material adverse effect on our business and our reputation. To the extent we are found to have failed to fulfill our regulatory obligations, we could lose our authorizations or licenses or become subject to conditions that could make future operations more costly and impair our profitability. Such events could also result in customer dissatisfaction and a decline in their willingness to trade on our markets.

We may be at greater risk from terrorism, which poses physical security risks and cybersecurity risks, than other companies.

Given our role in the global financial services industry, we may be more likely than other companies to be a direct target of, or an indirect casualty of, attacks by terrorists or terrorist organizations. It is impossible to accurately predict the likelihood or impact of any terrorist attack against us or our third party service providers, or on our industry generally. While we have implemented significant physical security protection measures, business continuity plans, and established backup sites to provide operational resiliency, in the event of an attack or a threat of an attack, these security measures and contingency plans may be inadequate to prevent significant disruptions in our business, technology or access to the infrastructure necessary to maintain our business. Such an attack may result in harm to our personnel or the closure of our facilities or render our backup data and recovery systems inoperable, or have similar consequences for our third party service providers. Damage to our facilities due to terrorist attacks may be significantly in excess of any amount of insurance coverage available, or we may not be able to insure against such damage at a reasonable price or at all. The threat of terrorist attacks also may negatively affect our ability to attract and retain employees. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and operating results.

RISKS RELATING TO OUR BUSINESS

Damage to our reputation or brand could harm our business.

Maintaining our reputation and brand is critical to attracting and retaining customers, investors and employees and to maintaining our relationships with our regulators and other government officials. Negative publicity regarding our company or actual, alleged or perceived issues regarding our company, products or services, including social and environmental concerns relating to our company or certain commodity products and increased impact from climate change or criticism or market reaction to the performance of our market in periods of extreme volatility, could give rise to reputational risk, which could significantly harm our business prospects. These issues may include, but are not limited to, any of the risks discussed in this Item 1A, including risks from customer disputes, system failures or intrusions, cybersecurity attacks, failures to meet our regulatory obligations, failures of a clearing firm or other counterparty, issues relating to our third-party suppliers, alleged or actual fraud or misconduct or manipulative activity, or ineffective risk management.

The success of our markets depends on our ability to complete development of, successfully implement and maintain electronic trading and clearing systems that have the functionality, performance, availability and resilience, capacity, security and speed required by our customers.

The success of our business depends in large part on our ability to create interactive electronic marketplaces for a wide range of products that have the required functionality, performance, availability and resilience, capacity, security and speed to attract and retain customers. In 2024, 92% of our overall contract volume was generated through electronic trading on our CME Globex electronic platform.

We must continue to enhance our electronic trading platforms and other technology offerings to remain competitive. As a result, we will continue to be subject to risks, expenses and uncertainties encountered in the rapidly evolving market for electronic transaction services. These risks include our failure or inability to:

• provide reliable and cost-effective services to our customers;

• develop, in a timely manner, the required functionality to support electronic trading in a manner that is competitive with the functionality supported by other electronic markets;

• maintain the competitiveness of our fee structure;

• attract ISVs to write software that will allow our customers to effectively access our systems;

• respond to technological developments or service offerings by competitors; and

• generate sufficient revenue to justify the substantial capital investment we have made and will continue to make to enhance our electronic trading platforms and other technology offerings.

If we do not continue to enhance our electronic trading systems and technology offerings, including the development and migration of our markets and supporting operational and business functions to the CME Google Cloud platform and the private Google Cloud region, if we are unable to develop our trading systems and technology offerings to include other products and markets, or if they do not have the required functionality, performance, availability and resilience, capacity, security and speed desired by our customers, our ability to successfully compete and our revenues and profits will be adversely affected, which could have a material impact on our financial condition or results of operations.

Additionally, we rely on our customers' ability to have the necessary back office functionality to support our new products and our trading and clearing functionality. To the extent our customers and/or their third party providers are not prepared and/or lack the resources or infrastructure, the success of our new initiatives may be compromised.

If we experience systems failures or capacity constraints, our ability to conduct our operations and execute our business strategy could be materially harmed, and we could be subject to significant costs and liabilities.

Our business is highly dependent on our ability to process, execute and monitor, in an efficient and uninterrupted manner, a large number of transactions, which occur at high volumes and frequencies across multiple systems and our ability to access key business data, financial information, order processing and invoicing. We are heavily reliant on the capacity, reliability and security of our information technology and communications and other business systems and software supporting our operations. Our systems, or those of our third-party providers, including cloud providers, may fail or be shut down or, due to capacity constraints, may operate slowly, causing one or more of the following to occur:

• unanticipated disruptions in service to our customers;

• slower response times and delays in our customers' trade execution and processing;

• failed settlement of trades;

• incomplete or inaccurate accounting, recording, or processing of trades;

• financial losses;

• cybersecurity attacks;

• litigation or other customer claims;

• loss of customers; or

• regulatory sanctions.

We cannot assure that we will not experience system failures from power or telecommunications failures, acts of God, war or terrorism, human error on our part or on the part of our third-party providers or partners, natural disasters, fire, rising temperatures, sabotage, hardware or software malfunctions or defects, computer viruses, cyber attacks, acts of vandalism or similar occurrences. If any of our systems or the systems of our third-party providers do not operate properly, are compromised or are disabled, including as a result of system failure, employee or customer error or misuse of our systems, we could suffer financial loss, liability to customers, regulatory intervention or reputational damage that could affect demand by current and potential users of our market.

From time to time, we have experienced system errors and failures that have resulted in some customers being unable to connect to our electronic trading platforms and technology offerings, or that resulted in erroneous reporting, such as transactions that were not authorized by any customer or reporting of filled orders as canceled. Such errors may result in CME Group being liable or in our voluntary assumption of financial liability. We cannot assure that if we experience system errors or failures in the future that they will not have a material adverse impact on our business. Any such system failures that cause an interruption in service or decrease our responsiveness could impact our trading volumes, impair our reputation, damage our brand, result in regulatory fines and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

Regulations relating to our trading and clearing systems generally require the handling of anticipated present and future peak trading volume. Heavy use of our systems during peak trading times or at times of unusual market volatility could cause them to operate slowly or even to fail for periods of time. We constantly monitor system loads and performance, and regularly implement system upgrades to handle estimated increases in volume. However, we cannot assure that our estimates of future trading volume and order messaging traffic will be accurate or that our systems will always be able to accommodate actual trading volume and order messaging traffic without failure or degradation of performance or speed. Increased trading volume and order messaging traffic may result in connectivity problems or erroneous reports that may affect users of our platforms.

System failure or degradation could lead our customers to file formal complaints with industry regulatory organizations, to file lawsuits against us or to cease doing business with us or could lead our regulators to initiate inquiries or proceedings for failure to comply with applicable laws and regulations.

We will need to continue to upgrade, expand and increase the capacity of our systems as our business grows and as we execute our business strategy. Although many of our systems are designed to accommodate additional volume and products and services without redesign or replacement, we will need to continue to make significant investments to accommodate the increases in volume of transactions and order transaction traffic and to provide processing services to third parties. If we cannot increase the capacity and capabilities of our systems to accommodate an increasing volume of transactions and to execute our business strategy, our ability to maintain or expand our businesses could be adversely affected.

We, as well as many of our customers, depend on third-party suppliers and service providers for a number of services that are important. An interruption or cessation of an important supply or service by any third party could have a material adverse effect on our business, including revenues derived from our customers' trading activity.

We depend on a number of suppliers, such as banking, clearing and settlement organizations, telephone companies, internet service providers, data processors, cloud hosting providers, data center providers, and software and hardware vendors, for elements of our trading, clearing, and other systems, as well as communications and networking equipment, computer hardware and software and related support and maintenance. Although we conduct due diligence and monitor important suppliers and service providers (including the resiliency of their operations), we cannot provide assurances of their performance and any interruption or cessation of their supplies or services could negatively impact our operations or those of our customers, as well as affect our reputation, financial or regulatory posture.

Many of our customers rely on third parties, such as ISVs, to provide them with front-end systems to access our trading platforms and other back office systems for their trade processing and risk management needs. While these service providers have undertaken to keep current and certify as to our enhancements and make corresponding changes to their software for our interfaces and functionality, we cannot guarantee that they will continue to make the necessary monetary, resource and time investments to keep up with our enhancements and changes.

To the extent any of our service providers or the organizations that provide services to our customers in connection with their trading activities cease to provide these services or cease to provide these services in an efficient, cost-effective manner, or fail to adequately expand their services to meet our needs and the needs of our customers, we could experience decreased trading volume, lower revenues and higher costs. In addition, while we may be entitled to recovery for breaches of, or liabilities otherwise incurred in connection with, our agreements with third-party suppliers and service providers, such recovery is limited by the terms of these agreements and may not compensate us in full.

Our business exposes us to substantial credit risk of our clearing firms and other counterparties and, consequently, a decrease in their financial resources could adversely affect us.

Our clearing house operations expose us to counterparties with differing risk profiles. We routinely guarantee transactions submitted by our clearing firm customers with counterparties in the financial industry, including brokers and dealers, commercial banks, investment banks, mutual and hedge funds and other institutional customers. We could be adversely impacted by the financial distress or failure of one or more of our clearing firms. Additionally, we are exposed to the risk of loss from the failure of a matched principal counterparty to settle its trades at BrokerTec Americas.

A substantial part of our working capital may be at risk if a clearing firm defaults on its obligations to our clearing house and its margin and guaranty fund deposits are insufficient to meet its obligations. Additionally, BrokerTec Americas is exposed to the potential risk of loss in the event a counterparty fails to meet its obligations. Although we have policies and procedures to help ensure that our clearing firms and other counterparties can satisfy their obligations, these policies and procedures may not succeed in detecting problems or preventing defaults. We also have in place various measures intended to enable us to cure any default and maintain liquidity. However, we cannot guarantee that these measures will be sufficient to protect market participants from a default or that we will not be adversely affected in the event of a significant default. In addition, we have established a fund (currently $98.0 million) to provide payments, up to certain maximum levels, to qualified family farmers, ranchers and other agricultural industry participants who use our products and who suffer losses to their segregated account balances if their clearing firm becomes insolvent.

Our market data revenues may be reduced by decreased demand, poor overall economic conditions, regulatory changes or a significant change in how market participants trade and use market data.

We offer a wide range of data services designed to support the trading, risk management, investment and business needs of our customers. Revenues from our market data and information services represented 12% of our total revenues during the years ended December 31, 2024 and December 31, 2023. Factors that may affect our performance and demand for our data include, but are not limited to:

• Our ability to maintain existing customers utilizing our data and to attract new customers with our products and services;

• A challenging business environment for our customers, which may require them to reduce their usage of our market data;

• The impacts of new regulations, laws, rules or other government policies;

• Our ability to ensure that customers are appropriately licensed and are paying fees for the data used;

• The protection of our intellectual property rights and identification of misappropriation and/or misuses of CME Group market data, including through the use of artificial intelligence; and

• Our ability to keep pace with technological developments and client preferences.

We may have difficulty executing our growth strategy and maintaining our growth effectively.

We continue to execute on strategic initiatives to grow our business, including efforts to serve the OTC markets and to distribute our products and services on a global basis, and other initiatives to enter new markets. There is no guarantee that our efforts will be successful. Continued growth will require additional investment in personnel, facilities, information technology infrastructure and financial and management systems and controls, and may place a significant strain on our management and resources. For example, if we encounter limited resources, we may be required to increase our expenses to obtain the necessary resources, defer existing initiatives or not pursue certain opportunities. We may not be successful in implementing all of the processes that are necessary to support our growth organically or, as described below, through acquisitions, other investments or strategic alliances and partnerships. Our growth strategy also may subject us to increased legal, compliance and regulatory obligations. Unless our growth results in an increase in revenues that is proportionate to the increase in our costs associated with our growth, our future profitability could be adversely affected, and we may have to incur significant expenditures to address the additional operational and control requirements as a result of our growth.

We intend to continue to explore acquisitions, other investments and strategic alliances. We may not be successful in identifying opportunities or in integrating the acquired businesses. Any such transaction may not produce the results we anticipate, which could adversely affect our business and our stock price.

We intend to continue to explore and pursue acquisitions and other strategic opportunities to strengthen our business and grow our company. We may make acquisitions or investments or enter into strategic partnerships, joint ventures and other alliances. The market for such transactions is highly competitive, especially in light of historical merger and acquisition activity in our industry. As a result, we may be unable to identify strategic opportunities or we may be unable to negotiate or finance future transactions on terms favorable to us, which could impact our ability to identify growth opportunities. We may issue additional equity and/or debt as part of strategic partnerships with third parties, as was the case in connection with our partnership with Google Cloud. The issuance of additional equity in connection with any future transaction could be substantially dilutive to our existing shareholders. The issuance of additional debt could increase our leverage substantially.

To the extent we acquire a new business, the process of integration also may produce unforeseen regulatory and operating difficulties and expenditures and may divert the attention of management from the ongoing operation of our business. To the extent we enter into joint ventures and alliances, we may experience difficulties in the development and expansion of the business of any newly formed ventures, in the exercise of influence over the activities of any ventures in which we do not have a controlling interest, as well as encounter potential conflicts with our joint venture or alliance partners. We may not realize the anticipated growth and other benefits from our growth initiatives and investments, which may have an adverse impact on our financial condition and operating results. We also may be required to take an impairment charge in our financial statements relating to our acquisitions and/or investments, which could negatively affect our stock price.

The expansion of our global operations is complex and subjects us to increased business and economic risks that could adversely affect our financial results.

In connection with our expanded global operations, we face certain risks inherent in doing business internationally. These risks include:

• fluctuations in currency exchange rates;

• complying with extensive and complex compliance requirements, regulations and oversight by regulators other than our primary functional regulators;

• difficulties in staffing and associated costs in managing multiple international locations;

• general economic, social and political conditions;

• protectionist laws and business practices that favor local businesses in some countries;

• reduced protection for intellectual property rights in some countries;

• language and cultural differences; and

• potentially adverse tax consequences.

If we are unable to manage the complexity of our global operations successfully, or if the risks above become substantial for us, our financial performance and operating results could suffer. Further, any measures we may implement to reduce risks of our international operations may not be effective, may increase our expenses and may require significant management time and effort.

As our consolidated financial statements are presented in U.S. dollars, we must translate our foreign subsidiaries’ financial statements from local currencies into U.S. dollars at exchange rates in effect during or at the end of each reporting period. Therefore, any increases or decreases in the value of the U.S. dollar against the other currencies may affect our operating income and the value of balance sheet items denominated in foreign currencies.

Our risk management, compliance and monitoring programs might not be effective and may result in outcomes that could adversely affect our reputation, financial condition and operating results.

In the normal course of our business, we discuss matters with our regulators, including during supervisory engagements and regulatory examinations, and we are subject to their inquiry and oversight. Our regulators have broad enforcement and supervisory powers, including, for example, the power to censure, fine, issue cease-and-desist orders, prohibit us from engaging in some of our businesses or suspend or revoke our regulatory designations or the registration of our officers or employees who violate applicable laws or regulations. Our ability to manage our risks and comply with applicable laws and regulations in the jurisdictions where we operate is largely dependent on our establishment and maintenance of effective risk management, compliance and monitoring programs. In the case of alleged non-compliance with applicable laws or regulations, we could be subject to investigations and judicial or administrative proceedings that may result in substantial penalties or civil lawsuits, including by customers, for damages, which could be significant. Any of these outcomes may adversely affect our reputation, regulatory standing, financial condition and operating results. In extreme cases, these outcomes could adversely affect our ability to conduct our business.

We maintain risk management, compliance and monitoring policies, procedures and programs that are designed to prevent, detect, deter, monitor and manage our risks, including enterprise risk, compliance and internal audit programs, but such policies, procedures and programs may not be fully effective in their design or operation. Some of our risk management processes depend upon evaluation of information regarding markets, customers, employees, third parties or other matters or potential threats that are publicly available or otherwise accessible by us. That information may not in all cases be accurate, complete, up-to-date or properly evaluated. Management of operational, financial, legal and compliance, regulatory, reputational and strategic risk requires, among other things, policies and procedures to record properly and verify a large number of transactions and events. We cannot guarantee that our policies and procedures will always be effective or that we will always be successful in evaluating, monitoring or managing the risks to which we are or may be exposed.

We could be harmed by misconduct or errors that are difficult to detect and deter.

There continue to be highly publicized cases involving fraud or other misconduct or manipulative activity by employees of financial services firms and other market participants. Improper trading activity on our platforms by participants could include activities such as spoofing, layering, wash trading and manipulation. Misconduct by our employees and agents could include hiding unauthorized activities from us, improper or unauthorized activities on behalf of customers or the company, improper securities trading activities, circumvention of controls and procedures, improper use of assets, improper use and unauthorized disclosure of data or confidential information of the company or its customers or third parties, improper use of artificial intelligence or failure to provide effective oversight over artificial intelligence, among other potential misconduct.

It is not always possible to deter misconduct, and the precautions we take to prevent and detect this activity may not be effective in all cases. If we were found to have not met our regulatory oversight and compliance obligations, we could be subject to regulatory sanctions, enforcement actions, financial penalties and restrictions on our activities for failure to properly identify, monitor and respond to potentially problematic activity, and such outcomes could seriously harm our reputation. Our employees and agents also may commit errors that could subject us to financial claims for negligence, as well as regulatory actions, or result in our voluntary assumption of financial liability. Further, allegations by regulatory or criminal authorities of improper

trading activities in our markets could affect our brand and reputation and reduce the number of participants trading in our markets. If that should occur, we could face a corresponding decline in trading volume and revenue.

Intellectual property rights licensed from third-party price reporting agencies form the basis for many of our products from which we derive a significant portion of our volume and revenue. Material changes in the intellectual property landscape or regulatory framework pertaining to such benchmarks could have a negative impact on our ability to offer such products.

A significant percentage of our contract volume and revenue is based on indexes derived from third-party price reporting agencies. If such third parties take actions that result in the loss of protection for those intellectual property rights or changes in intellectual property laws yield that result, it could have a negative impact on our contract volume and revenues.

A failure to protect our intellectual property rights, or allegations that we have infringed the intellectual property rights of others, could adversely affect our business.

Our business is dependent on proprietary technology and intellectual property that we own or license from third parties. We own the rights to a large number of trademarks, service marks, domain names and trade names in the U.S., Europe, and other parts of the world. We have registered many of our most important trademarks in the U.S. and other countries. We hold the rights to a number of patents and have patent applications pending. Our patents cover match engine, trader user interface, trading floor support, market data, general technology and clearing house functionalities. We attempt to protect our proprietary technology and intellectual property rights by relying on patents, trademarks, copyright, database rights, trade secrets, restrictions on disclosure, and other methods. Notwithstanding the precautions we take to protect our proprietary technology and intellectual property rights, it is possible that employees or third parties may copy, misappropriate, or otherwise obtain and use our proprietary technology without authorization or otherwise infringe on our rights. The use of certain artificial intelligence technology can give rise to intellectual property risks, including claims that the data used to train, or in connection with certain models infringes the intellectual property rights of the owner of such data. In addition, in the future, we may have to rely on litigation to enforce our intellectual property rights, protect our trade secrets, challenge the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others or defend against claims of infringement or invalidity. Any such litigation, whether successful or unsuccessful, could result in substantial costs to us and diversions of our resources, either of which could adversely affect our business.

Patents of third parties may have an important bearing on our ability to offer certain products and services. Our competitors as well as other companies and individuals may obtain, and may be expected to obtain in the future, patents related to the types of products and services we offer or plan to offer. We cannot guarantee that we are or will be aware of all patents containing claims that may pose a risk of infringement by our products and services. In addition, some patent applications in the U.S. are confidential until a patent is issued and, therefore, we cannot evaluate the extent to which our products and services may be covered or asserted to be covered by claims contained in pending patent applications. These claims of infringement are not uncommon in our industry. As a result, we may face allegations that we have infringed the intellectual property rights of third parties, which may be costly for us to defend. If one or more of our products or services is found to infringe on patents held by others, we may be required to stop developing or marketing the products or services, to obtain licenses to develop and market the services from the holders of the patents or to redesign the products or services in such a way as to avoid infringing on the patents. We could also be required to pay damages if we were found to infringe patents held by others, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results. We cannot assess the extent to which we may be required in the future to obtain licenses with respect to patents held by others, whether such licenses would be available or, if available, whether we would be able to obtain such licenses on commercially reasonable terms. If we were unable to obtain such licenses, we may not be able to redesign our products or services at a reasonable cost to avoid infringement, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

RISKS RELATING TO AN INVESTMENT IN OUR CLASS A COMMON STOCK

Our indebtedness could adversely affect our financial condition and operations and prevent us from fulfilling our debt service obligations. We might still be able to incur more debt, intensifying these risks.

As of December 31, 2024, we had approximately $3.4 billion of total indebtedness and we had excess borrowing capacity for general corporate purposes under our existing facilities of approximately $2.3 billion.

Our indebtedness could have important consequences. For example, our indebtedness may:

• require us to dedicate a significant portion of our cash flow from operations to payments on our debt, thereby reducing the availability of cash flows to fund capital expenditures, to pursue acquisitions or investments, to pay dividends and for general corporate purposes;

• increase our vulnerability to general adverse economic conditions;

• limit our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in or challenges relating to our business and industry; or

• place us at a competitive disadvantage against any less leveraged competitors.

The occurrence of any one of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, prospects and ability to satisfy our debt service obligations. In addition, the agreements governing our outstanding indebtedness do not significantly limit our ability to incur additional indebtedness, which, particularly given changes in interest rates, could increase the risks described above to the extent that we incur additional debt. Our regulated businesses are also required to maintain minimum capital requirements set by their applicable regulators.

Please see "Item 7 - Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations — Regulatory Requirements" beginning on page 47 for additional information regarding capital requirements.

Any reduction in our credit rating could increase the cost of our funding from the capital markets.

Our long-term debt is currently rated investment grade by two of the major rating agencies. These rating agencies regularly evaluate us. Their ratings of our long-term debt are based on a number of factors, including our financial strength, as well as factors not entirely within our control, such as conditions affecting the financial services industry generally. As a result, there can be no assurance that we will maintain our current ratings. In the past, we have experienced ratings downgrades. Our failure to maintain our ratings could adversely affect the cost and other terms upon which we are able to obtain funding and increase our cost of capital. Additionally, if our ratings are downgraded below investment grade due to a change of control, we are required to make an offer to repurchase all of our fixed-rate notes at a price equal to 101% of the principal amount, plus accrued and unpaid interest.

Our average rate per contract for our derivatives business is subject to fluctuation due to a number of factors. As a result, our average rate per contract in any particular period may not be a reliable indication of our future average rate per contract.

Our average rate per contract for our derivatives business, which impacts our operating results, is subject to fluctuation due to shifts in the mix of products traded, the trading venue and the mix of customers (whether the customer receives member or non-member fees or participates in one of our various incentive programs) and the impact of our tiered pricing structure. In addition, our members and participants in our various incentive programs generally are charged lower fees than our non-member customers. Variation in each of these factors is difficult to predict and will have an impact on our average rate per contract in the particular period. Because of this fluctuation, we cannot assure that our average rate per contract in any particular period serves as an indication of our future average rate per contract. If we fail to meet securities analysts' expectations regarding our operating results, the price of our Class A common stock could decline substantially.

Nine of our board members own trading rights, or are officers or directors of firms that own trading rights, on our derivatives exchanges. As members, these individuals may have interests that differ from or conflict with those of shareholders who are not also members. Our dependence on the trading and clearing activities of our exchange members, combined with the CME members' rights to elect six directors, may enable them to exert influence over the operation of our business.

Nine of our directors own, or are officers or directors of firms that own trading rights on our exchanges. We are dependent on the revenues from the trading and clearing activities of our exchange members. In 2024, 85% of our derivatives contract volume was derived from our members. This dependence may give them influence over how we operate our business.

Many of our members and clearing firms derive a substantial portion of their income and profit from their trading or clearing activities on or through our exchanges. In addition, trading rights on our exchanges have substantial independent value. The amount of profit that members derive from their trading, brokering and clearing activities and the value of their trading rights are, in part, dependent on the fees they are charged to trade, broker, clear and access our markets, and the rules and structure of our markets. As a result, members may not have the same economic interests as holders of our Class A common stock. In addition, our members may have differing interests among themselves depending on the roles they serve in our markets, their methods of trading and the products they trade. Consequently, members may advocate that we enhance and protect their clearing and trading opportunities and the value of their trading privileges over their investment in our Class A common stock, if any.

Our members have been granted special rights, which protect their trading privileges and require that we maintain open outcry for options products still meeting certain volume thresholds and, in the case of our Class B shareholders, provide them with special board representation.

Under the terms of the organizational documents of our exchanges, our exchange members have certain rights that relate primarily to trading right protections, certain trading fee protections and certain membership benefit protections. Additionally, our Class B shareholders, who are members of our CME exchange, are entitled to elect six directors to our board even if their Class A share ownership interest is very small or non-existent. We have limited ability to eliminate these election rights, and prior attempts to do so did not receive the necessary shareholder approvals. In connection with these rights, our ability to take

certain actions that we may deem to be in the best interests of the company and its shareholders, including actions relating to certain pricing decisions, may be limited by the rights of our members.

Not applicable.

As a highly regulated global financial services company, we understand the substantial operational risks for companies in our industry as well as the importance of protecting the information and data of our clients, third parties and employees and the resilience of our systems. As such, our Global Informational Security (GIS) Program is designed and operated to mitigate information security risks and threats to the company. Its intent is to safeguard the confidentiality, integrity and availability of our information and services. The GIS Program is designed to strengthen the integrity of the global markets we support, protect CME Group’s information assets, maintain client, third party and employee trust, support our pursuit of strategic objectives, contribute to shareholder value and preserve our reputation and brand. We implement technical, physical and administrative safeguards to protect the confidential and sensitive information of our clients, third parties, employees and other information under CME Group’s stewardship. We manage cybersecurity risk to the organization as part of our business strategy, risk management and financial functions in alignment with our overall Enterprise Risk Management Program and regularly engage with the risk committee of the board of directors and the board of directors as a whole regarding the effectiveness of the GIS Program and the management of our cybersecurity risks.

The GIS Program is led by CME Group’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), who has worked in various roles in information security for over 20 years and has led our GIS Program for more than five years since joining the company in 2016 in a senior role in GIS. The CISO reports to our Chief Information Officer (CIO), a member of our Management Team. Our GIS team is comprised of over 200 full-time employees, many of whom hold cybersecurity, risk, or management certifications, such as Certified Information Systems Security Professional, Certified Information Security Manager, Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control, Series 99, Certified Information Systems Auditor, Project Management Professional, various cloud provider certifications and various levels of ITIL certifications. As part of our GIS Program, CME Group operates a Cyber Defense Center that virtually links 24/7 to our international cybersecurity teams and serves as a global hub for cybersecurity risk management activities, including log collection, event monitoring, threat detection and incident response, resiliency, operations, vulnerability management and the proactive collection and processing of both open source and proprietary threat and intelligence feeds allowing the company to efficiently manage, investigate and respond to cybersecurity events. Our GIS team conducts analyses and aims to prevent, detect and respond to systemic events that might threaten our company, industry or the economy.

The GIS Program includes a Cyber Defense team, which manages the Incident Response Plan (IRP), and consists of subject matter experts from GIS and Information Governance, who work together to monitor and respond to cybersecurity incidents. The IRP outlines our cyber and incident response policies and governs our incident response lifecycle, which divides overall incident response into serial phases. The Crisis Management Team (CMT) is responsible for oversight during an incident, in conjunction with the Cyber Coordination Team (CCT). The CCT manages responses to cybersecurity and compliance incidents, collaborating with subject matter experts from various departments in response to specific incidents. When an incident reaches a certain threshold of severity, our CISO and CIO escalate the matter to our Chief Operating Officer, who is another member of our Management Team, to determine next steps, as well as possible customer and external communication. Throughout the incident response process, the Legal team is engaged, as appropriate, and helps consider whether disclosure is required once a determination is made in connection with the company’s leadership and the CMT.

We identify, assess and manage material risks from cybersecurity threats through our GIS Program as follows:

• We deploy a defense-in-depth strategy, acknowledging the importance of people, processes and technology in upholding information security. The strategy incorporates multiple layers of controls, including, monitoring, vulnerability management, identity and access management and security assessments.

• Our program is aligned with the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework (NIST) and other technical standards and frameworks.

• We have a robust cybersecurity defense response plan that provides a documented framework for handling security incidents and facilitates coordination across multiple parts of the company.

• We invest in threat intelligence and operate a Cyber Defense Center, which acts as our hub of information sharing and threat intelligence analysis.

• We incorporate external expertise and reviews into our cybersecurity risk management program and continue to engage leading professional consulting firms to assist our company in incorporating cybersecurity best practices.

• We provide annual cybersecurity awareness and ongoing phishing training, and we routinely conduct cybersecurity attack simulation exercises, which includes participation from various levels of management.

• Following a risk-based approach, we conduct due diligence reviews of our third party providers for potential cybersecurity risks to the company. We also maintain a cross-functional Third Party Risk Management program, which partners with our GIS, Information Governance, and Operational Resilience teams, among others, to manage and monitor third party risk presented by CME Group vendors and certain third parties of third parties (fourth parties). The teams conduct initial due diligence on vendors and monitor cyber-related incidents and known vulnerabilities with the goal of enhancing processes, improving risk management and partnering on exit planning and testing for certain vendors associated with essential functions.

• We have insurance against certain cybersecurity and privacy risks and attacks.

• We are an active participant in the financial services industry and government forums and information sharing programs, designed to improve both internal and sector cybersecurity defense. These valuable external partnerships are established and maintained in order to gain more timely, comprehensive and actionable threat information across geographies and industries and to facilitate the exchange of best practices and security techniques. They allow for a high degree of collaboration and cooperation with local, state, federal, and international law enforcement and intelligence agencies, industry groups, and other private sector chief information security officers.

• We regularly test the design and effectiveness of our information security controls and processes through a program of testing performed by internal and independent third-party teams. Remediation of gaps and opportunities identified through testing are tracked through to closure. Testing activities support a variety of regulatory requirements and external industry certifications held by CME Group.

The board provides oversight of cybersecurity risks and has designated primary responsibility to the risk committee which oversees our information security programs, including cybersecurity, and is actively involved in monitoring the progress of key cybersecurity initiatives. Our board and risk committee receive regular updates on the activities and effectiveness of our GIS Program, including reports on incident response plan testing exercises and results of compliance testing and third-party evaluation results. Our CISO provides quarterly, or as needed, reports and updates to our board and risk committee on the company's cybersecurity risk management program and meets with the risk committee at least annually in a private session. The CISO has an indirect reporting line to the risk committee. We also engage with leading professional consulting firms to provide periodic updates to the board on cybersecurity-related risks in the evolving threat landscape and to provide education on best practices for board oversight of our GIS Program.

To date, the company is not aware of risks from cybersecurity threats, including as a result of any previous cybersecurity incidents, that have materially affected or are reasonably likely to materially affect the company, including our business strategy, results of operations or financial condition.

See "Item 1A - Risk Factors" beginning on page 16 for additional information on cyber attacks and other cybersecurity risks the company faces.

Our corporate headquarters are located at 20 South Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL, where we lease approximately 530,000 square feet of general office space. This lease expires in 2032. Our European headquarters are located at the London Fruit & Wool Exchange at 1 Duval Square, London, where we lease approximately 120,000 square feet of general office space. This lease expires in 2038.

We also lease our largest data center from CyrusOne in Aurora, IL. This lease expires in 2031.

In addition to the above properties, we have other offices and data centers in various locations around the globe. The company’s management believes that its properties are suitable for the purposes for which they are used and our current needs. Please see note 5. Property and note 11. Leases to the consolidated financial statements for more information.

See "Legal and Regulatory Matters" in note 12. Contingencies to the consolidated financial statements beginning on page 76 for CME Group’s legal proceedings disclosure, which is incorporated herein by reference.

Not applicable.

PART II

Class A Common Stock

Our Class A common stock is currently listed on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "CME." As of February 12, 2025, there were approximately 3,870 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 OTC 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 12, 2025, there were approximately 1,480 holders of record of our Class B common stock.

Preferred Stock

In 2021, we issued and sold in a private placement approximately 4.6 million shares of Series G Non-Voting Convertible Preferred Stock. Series G Non-Voting Convertible Preferred Stock is not listed on a national securities exchange or traded in an organized OTC market. These shares are convertible to Class A common stock at the discretion of the holder at a specified conversion rate, which is initially 1:1. Series G Non-Voting Convertible Preferred Stock has the same equitable interest in our earnings and the same dividend payments per share as our Class A shares on an as converted basis. As of February 12, 2025, there was one holder of record of our Series G Non-Voting Convertible Preferred Stock.

PERFORMANCE GRAPH

The graph below compares the cumulative five-year total return on CME Group Inc.'s Class A common stock relative to the cumulative total returns of the S&P 500 index and a customized peer group of five companies that include: Cboe Global Markets Inc, Deutsche Boerse Ag, Intercontinental Exchange Inc, London Stock Exchange Group Plc 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, 2019 and its relative performance is tracked through December 31, 2024.

The stock price performance included in this graph is not necessarily indicative of future stock price performance.

Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities

Not applicable.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

(1)Shares purchased consist of an aggregate of 16,069 shares of Class A common stock surrendered to satisfy employee tax obligations upon the vesting of restricted stock.

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 2024 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 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

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 development 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 an

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We are subject to various market risks, including those caused by changes in interest rates, credit and foreign currency exchange rates.

Interest Rate Risk

Debt outstanding at December 31, 2024 consisted of fixed-rate borrowings of $3.4 billion. Changes in interest rates impact the fair values of fixed-rate debt, but do not impact earnings or cash flows. We did not have any variable-rate borrowings at December 31, 2024.

Credit Risk

CME Clearing House

Our clearing house acts as the counterparty to all trades consummated on our exchange as well as through third-party exchanges and swaps markets for which we provide clearing services. As a result, we are exposed to significant credit risk of third parties, including clearing firms. We are also exposed, indirectly, to the credit risk of customers of our clearing firms. These parties may default on their obligations due to bankruptcy, lack of liquidity, operational failure or other reasons.

In order to ensure performance, we establish and monitor financial requirements for our clearing firms. We set minimum performance bond requirements for exchange-traded and interest rate swaps products. For clearing firms, we establish performance bond requirements to cover at least 99% of expected price changes for a given product within a given historical period with further quantitative and qualitative considerations based on market risk. We establish haircuts applied to collateral deposited to meet performance bond requirements to cover at least 99% of expected price changes and foreign currency changes for a given asset within a given historical period with further quantitative and qualitative considerations. Haircuts vary depending on the type of collateral and maturity. We mark-to-market open positions of clearing firms at least once a day (twice a day for futures and options contracts) and require payment from clearing firms whose positions have lost value and make payments to clearing firms whose positions have gained value. We have the capability to mark-to-market more frequently as market conditions warrant. These practices allow our clearing house to quickly identify any clearing firms that may not be able to satisfy the financial obligations resulting from changes in the prices of their open positions before those financial obligations become exceptionally large and jeopardize the ability of our clearing house to ensure performance of their open positions.

Although we have policies and procedures to help ensure that our clearing firms can satisfy their obligations, these policies and procedures may not succeed in detecting problems or preventing defaults. We also have in place various measures intended to enable us to cover any default and maintain liquidity.

Despite our safeguards, we cannot guarantee that these measures will be sufficient to protect us from a default or that we will not be materially and adversely affected in the event of a significant default.

We maintain two separate financial safeguard packages:

• a financial safeguard package for all futures, options and OTC swap contracts other than cleared interest rate swap contracts (base package); and

• a financial safeguard package for cleared interest rate swap contracts.

In the unlikely event of a payment default by a clearing firm, we would first apply assets of the defaulting clearing firm to satisfy its payment obligation. These assets include the defaulting firm's guaranty fund contributions, performance bonds and any other available assets, such as assets required for clearing membership and any associated trading rights. Thereafter, if the payment default remains unsatisfied, we would use our corporate contributions designated for the respective financial safeguard package. We would then use guaranty fund contributions of other clearing firms within the respective financial safeguard package and funds collected through an assessment against non-defaulting clearing firms within the respective financial safeguard package to satisfy the deficit.

We maintain a $7.0 billion 364-day multi-currency line of credit with a consortium of domestic and international banks to be used in certain situations by our clearing house. We have the option to request an increase in the line from $7.0 billion to $10.0 billion. We may use the proceeds to provide temporary liquidity in the unlikely event of a clearing firm default, in the event of a liquidity constraint or default by a depositary (custodian of the collateral) or in the event of a temporary disruption with the payments systems that would delay payment of settlement variation between us and our clearing firms. The credit agreement requires us to pledge certain assets to the line of credit custodian prior to drawing on the line of credit. Pledged assets may include clearing firm guaranty fund deposits held by us in the form of cash or U.S. Treasury securities. Performance bond collateral of a defaulting clearing firm may also be used to secure a draw on the line. In addition to the 364-day multi-currency line of credit, we also have the option to use our $2.3 billion multi-currency revolving senior credit facility to provide liquidity for our clearing house in the unlikely event of default.

We maintain committed repurchase facility agreements amounting to a total of $1.0 billion. The committed repurchase facilities provide access to cash, secured by non-cash collateral, in the event that one or more of our clearing firms fails to promptly discharge an obligation to the clearing house. The facilities are subject to annual renewal. We currently do not have any borrowings outstanding under these facilities.

We also maintain a committed facility of up to $750.0 million for foreign currency conversions. The committed foreign currency facility allows the clearing house to convert cash to another currency within generally accepted local market timeframes in the event that one or more of our clearing firms fails to promptly discharge an obligation to the clearing house. The facility is subject to annual renewal. We currently do not have any foreign currency trades outstanding under this facility.

At December 31, 2024, aggregate performance bond deposits for clearing firms for both financial safeguard packages was $291.5 billion, including cash performance bond deposits, non-cash deposits, Interest Earnings Facility funds and letters of credit. A defaulting firm's performance bond deposits can be used in the event of default of that clearing firm.

The following shows the available assets at December 31, 2024 in the event of a payment default by a clearing firm for the base financial safeguard package after first utilizing the defaulting firm's available assets:

(1)Our clearing house designates $100.0 million of corporate contributions to satisfy a clearing firm default in the event that the defaulting clearing firm's guaranty contributions and performance bonds do not satisfy the deficit.

(2)Guaranty fund contributions of clearing firms include guaranty fund contributions required of clearing firms, but do not include any excess deposits held by us at the direction of clearing firms.

(3)In the event of a clearing firm default, if a loss continues to exist after the utilization of the assets of the defaulted firm, our corporate contribution and the non-defaulting clearing firms' guaranty fund contributions, we would assess all non-defaulting clearing firm as provided in the rules governing the guaranty fund. We could assess non-defaulting clearing firms 275% of their existing guaranty fund requirements in the event of a single default, and up to a maximum of 550% of their existing guaranty fund requirements in the event of a default by multiple clearing firms, as provided in the rules. Assessment powers are calculated to reflect the potential obligation that each clearing member could be called for in the event clearing member defaults exhaust the guaranty fund; however, the total amount available would be reduced by the defaulted clearing firms' assessment obligations since they would no longer be able to satisfy their obligations.

The following shows the available assets for the interest rate swap financial safeguard package at December 31, 2024 in the event of a payment default by a clearing firm that clears interest rate swap contracts, after first utilizing the defaulting firm's available assets:

(1)Our clearing house designates $150.0 million of corporate contributions to satisfy a clearing firm default in the event that the defaulting clearing firm's guaranty contributions and performance bonds do not satisfy the deficit.

(2)Guaranty fund contributions of clearing firms include guaranty fund contributions required of clearing firms, but do not include any excess deposits held by us at the direction of clearing firms.

(3)In the event of a clearing firm default, if a loss continues to exist after the utilization of the assets of the defaulted firm, our corporate contribution and the non-defaulting firms' guaranty fund contributions, we would assess non-defaulting clearing firms as provided in the rules governing the interest rate swap guaranty fund. Assessment powers are calculated to reflect the potential obligation that each clearing member could be called for based on potential failure of the third and fourth largest clearing member; however, the total amount available would be reduced by the defaulted clearing firms' assessment obligations since they would no longer be able to satisfy their obligations.

BrokerTec Americas Matched Principal Business

BrokerTec Americas maintains a matched principal business, where it serves as a fully matched counterparty to offsetting positions entered into by clients on its electronic trading platform to facilitate anonymity and access to clearing and settlement. BrokerTec Americas uses Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC), a third-party central clearing house as well as a third-party clearing bank for the settlement of transactions and is required to post short-term margin requirements twice a day that can vary based on the size of unsettled transactions and any adverse market changes. At December 31, 2024, the balance of the collateral at FICC was $230.0 million, which was included in other current assets on the consolidated balance sheet.

Without sufficient funds to meet its obligations, BrokerTec Americas could be exposed to risk of breach of contract with the counterparties and the inability to continue as a member of the third-party central clearing house. Transactions with clearing house members are typically confirmed and novated shortly after execution, at which point the clearing house assumes the risk of settlement. For transactions with counterparties that are not members of the third-party clearing house, settlement typically occurs on the day following execution and, prior to settlement, BrokerTec Americas is exposed to the risk of loss in the event a counterparty fails to meet its obligations. If that were to occur, BrokerTec Americas would have the right to cover or liquidate the open position but could incur a loss as a result of market movements.

Foreign Currency Exchange Rate Risk

Foreign Currency Transaction Risk

We have foreign currency transaction risk related to changes in exchange rates on monetary assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses held at subsidiaries where those balances and activity are denominated in a currency other than the subsidiary's functional currency. Gains and losses on foreign currency transactions result primarily from cash, debt and other monetary assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses denominated in British pounds, euros and Japanese yen.

Aggregate transaction gains (losses) for 2024, 2023 and 2022 were $(3.0) million, $(12.9) million and $13.2 million, respectively. We expect the foreign currency gain/loss to continue to fluctuate as long as we continue to hold monetary assets and liabilities at those subsidiaries. Market uncertainty could potentially lead to significant volatility with foreign currency exchange rates, which could result in additional foreign currency gain/loss.

Foreign Currency Translation Risk

We have foreign currency translation risk related to the translation of our foreign consolidated and unconsolidated subsidiaries' assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses from their respective functional currencies to the U.S. dollar at each reporting date. Fluctuations in exchange rates may impact the amount of assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses we report on our consolidated balance sheets and consolidated statements of income. The financial statements of those foreign subsidiaries with functional currencies other than the U.S. dollar are translated into U.S. dollars using a current exchange rate. Gains and losses resulting from this translation are recognized as a foreign currency translation adjustment within accumulated other comprehensive income, which is a component of shareholders' equity and comprehensive income. Aggregate translation gains (losses) for 2024, 2023 and 2022 were $(61.0) million, $70.8 million and $(195.4) million, respectively.

Foreign Currency Exchange Risk Related to Customer Collateral

A portion of performance bond deposits is denominated in various foreign currencies. We mark-to-market all deposits daily and require payment from clearing firms whose collateral has lost value due to changes in foreign currency rates and price. Therefore, our exposure to foreign currency risk related to performance bond deposits is considered minimal and is not expected to be material to our financial condition or operating results.

CME GROUP INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

(dollars in millions, except per share data; shares in thousands)

See accompanying notes to consolidated financial statements.

CME GROUP INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF INCOME

(dollars in millions, except per share data; shares in thousands)

See accompanying notes to consolidated financial statements.

CME GROUP INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME

(in millions)

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Not applicable.

Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

Our management, with the participation of our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, has evaluated the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures (as such term is defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (Exchange Act)) as of the end of the period covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Based on such evaluation, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer have concluded that, as of the end of such period, our disclosure controls and procedures are effective.

Changes in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

As required by Rule 13a-15(d) under the Exchange Act, the company's management, including the company's Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, have evaluated the company's internal control over financial reporting (as such term is defined in Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f) under the Exchange Act) to determine whether any changes occurred during the period covered by this report that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, the company's internal control over financial reporting. There were no changes in the company’s internal control over financial reporting which occurred during the fourth quarter of 2024, that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, the company’s internal control over financial reporting.

Management’s Annual Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

Management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting. Our internal control system has been designed to provide reasonable assurance to management and the board of directors regarding the preparation and fair presentation of published financial statements.

Management assessed the effectiveness of the company’s internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2024. Management based its assessment on criteria for effective internal control over financial reporting described in Internal Control-Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (2013 framework). Management’s assessment included evaluating the design of our internal control over financial reporting and testing the operational effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. The results of its assessment were reviewed with the audit committee of the board of directors.

Based on this assessment, management believes that, as of December 31, 2024, our internal control over financial reporting is effective. The effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2024 has been audited by Ernst & Young LLP (PCAOB ID 42), an independent registered public accounting firm, as stated in the report on page 87.

Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm

To the Shareholders and the Board of Directors of CME Group Inc.

Opinion on the Financial Statements

We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of CME Group Inc. and subsidiaries (the Company) as of December 31, 2024 and 2023, the related consolidated statements of income, comprehensive income, equity and cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2024, and the related notes and financial statement schedule listed in the Index at Item 15(a) (collectively referred to as the “consolidated financial statements”). In our opinion, the consolidated financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company at December 31, 2024 and 2023, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2024, in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.

We also have audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB), the Company’s internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2024, based on criteria established in Internal Control-Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (2013 framework), and our report dated February 27, 2025 expressed an unqualified opinion thereon.

Basis for Opinion

These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s financial statements based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm registered with the PCAOB and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.

We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. Our audits included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.

Critical Audit Matter

The critical audit matter communicated below is a matter arising from the current period audit of the consolidated financial statements that was communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that: (1) relates to accounts or disclosures that are material to the consolidated financial statements and (2) involved our especially challenging, subjective, or complex judgments. The communication of the critical audit matter does not alter in any way our opinion on the consolidated financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit matter below, providing a separate opinion on the critical audit matter or on the account or disclosure to which it relates.

/s/ Ernst & Young LLP

We have served as the Company’s auditor since 2002.

Chicago, Illinois

February 27, 2025

Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm

To the Shareholders and the Board of Directors of CME Group Inc.

Opinion on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

We have audited CME Group Inc. and subsidiaries’ internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2024, based on criteria established in Internal Control—Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (2013 framework) (the COSO criteria). In our opinion, CME Group Inc. and subsidiaries (the Company) maintained, in all material respects, effective internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2024, based on the COSO criteria.

We also have audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB), the consolidated balance sheets of the Company as of December 31, 2024 and 2023, the related consolidated statements of income, comprehensive income, equity and cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2024, and the related notes and financial statement schedule listed in the Index at Item 15(a) and our report dated February 27, 2025 expressed an unqualified opinion thereon.

Basis for Opinion

The Company’s management is responsible for maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting and for its assessment of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting included in the accompanying Management’s Annual Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s internal control over financial reporting based on our audit. We are a public accounting firm registered with the PCAOB and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.

We conducted our audit in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether effective internal control over financial reporting was maintained in all material respects.

Our audit included obtaining an understanding of internal control over financial reporting, assessing the risk that a material weakness exists, testing and evaluating the design and operating effectiveness of internal control based on the assessed risk, and performing such other procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances. We believe that our audit provides a reasonable basis for our opinion.

Definition and Limitations of Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

A company’s internal control over financial reporting is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A company’s internal control over financial reporting includes those policies and procedures that (1) pertain to the maintenance of records that, in reasonable detail, accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of the company; (2) provide reasonable assurance that transactions are recorded as necessary to permit preparation of financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, and that receipts and expenditures of the company are being made only in accordance with authorizations of management and directors of the company; and (3) provide reasonable assurance regarding prevention or timely detection of unauthorized acquisition, use, or disposition of the company’s assets that could have a material effect on the financial statements.

Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.

/s/ Ernst & Young LLP

Chicago, Illinois

February 27, 2025

During the quarter ended December 31, 2024, no director or officer of the Company adopted or terminated a “Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement” or “non-Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement,” as each term is defined in Item 408(a) of Regulation S-K.

Not applicable.

PART III

We have adopted written codes of conduct applicable to all of our employees, including our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and other senior financial officers. In accordance with SEC rules and regulations, copies of these codes of conduct are available on our website at www.cmegroup.com under the "Investor Relations — Corporate Governance" link. In accordance with SEC rules and regulations and the listing requirements of Nasdaq, we intend to disclose promptly on the website and location specified above any substantive amendments to these codes of conduct and any waivers granted to our executive officers or Board members. In addition, we have adopted Corporate Governance Principles which govern the practices of our board of directors. You may also obtain a copy of our codes of conduct and our Corporate Governance Principles by following the instructions in the section of this Annual Report on Form 10-K entitled "Item 1 - Business - Available Information."

We have adopted an insider trading policy governing the purchase, sale and other dispositions of the Company's securities by the Company's directors, officers and employees, as well as by the Company itself. We believe our insider trading policy is reasonably designed to promote compliance with insider trading laws, rules and regulations, and listing standards applicable to the Company. Our insider trading policy is filed as Exhibit 19.1 to this Form 10-K.

Certain of the information called for by this item is hereby incorporated herein by reference to the relevant portions of CME Group’s definitive proxy statement for the Annual Meeting of Shareholders to be held on May 8, 2025, to be filed by CME Group with the SEC pursuant to Regulation 14A within 120 days after December 31, 2024 (Proxy Statement). Additional information called for by this item is contained in Item 1 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K under the caption "Information about our Executive Officers."

Certain of the information called for by this item is hereby incorporated herein by reference to the relevant portions of the Proxy Statement.

Certain of the information called for by this item relating to the security ownership of certain beneficial owners and management is hereby incorporated herein by reference to the relevant portions of the Proxy Statement.

EQUITY COMPENSATION PLAN INFORMATION

We currently maintain the following equity compensation plans: CME Group Inc. Amended and Restated Omnibus Stock Plan, CME Group Inc. Director Stock Plan and CME Group Inc. Amended and Restated Employee Stock Purchase Plan. We do not maintain any equity compensation plans not approved by shareholders. A description of each of these plans and the number of shares authorized and available for future awards is included in note 15 of the notes to consolidated financial statements. The numbers in the following table are as of December 31, 2024.

Certain of the information called for by this item is hereby incorporated herein by reference to the relevant portions of CME Group's definitive proxy statement for the Annual Meeting of Shareholders to be held on May 8, 2025.

The information required by this Item will appear in the Proxy Statement and is incorporated herein by reference.

PART IV

(a) Financial Statements, Financial Statement Schedules and Exhibits

(1) Financial Statements

The following Consolidated Financial Statements and related Notes included within Item 8, together with the Reports of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm with respect thereto and included within Item 9A, are hereby incorporated by reference:

Reports of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm

Consolidated Balance Sheets at December 31, 2024 and 2023

Consolidated Statements of Income for the Years Ended December 31, 2024, 2023 and 2022

Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income for the Years Ended December 31, 2024, 2023 and 2022

Consolidated Statements of Equity for the Years Ended December 31, 2024, 2023 and 2022

Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows for the Years Ended December 31, 2024, 2023 and 2022

Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

(2) Financial Statement Schedules

The following Financial Statement Schedule is filed as part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K:

CME Group Inc. and Subsidiaries

Schedule II—Valuation and Qualifying Accounts

For the Years Ended December 31, 2024, 2023 and 2022

(dollars in millions)

(1)Includes write-offs of doubtful accounts, foreign currency and write-offs of fully reserved deferred tax assets.

All other schedules have been omitted because the information required to be set forth in those schedules is not applicable or is shown on the consolidated financial statements or notes thereto.

(3)Exhibits

See (b) Exhibits below

(b) Exhibits

(1)Management contract or compensatory plan or arrangement.

(2)Portions of this exhibit have been redacted in compliance with Item 601(b)(10) of Regulation S-K.

None.

SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized, in the City of Chicago and State of Illinois on the 27th day of February, 2025.

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, this report has been signed below by the following persons on behalf of the registrant and in the capacities indicated, in the City of Chicago and State of Illinois on the 27th day of February, 2025.