CME Group Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
April 26, 2023

There are 18 speakers on the call.

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the CME Group First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, Wednesday, April 26, 2023. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Adam Minnick, Senior Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Speaker 1

Good morning, and I hope you're all doing well today. We will be discussing CME Group's Q1 2023 Financial Results. I will start with the Safe Harbor language and then I'll turn it over to Terry. Statements made on this call and in the other reference documents on our website that are not historical facts are forward looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance.

Speaker 1

They involve statements, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or implied in any statement. Detailed information about factors that may affect our performance can be found in the filings with the SEC, which are on our website. Lastly, on the final page of the earnings release, you will see a reconciliation between GAAP and non GAAP measures. With that, I'll turn the call over to Terry.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Adam, and thank you all for joining us this morning. We released our executive commentary earlier today, which provides details on the Q1 of 2023. I'll make a few brief comments on the quarter and current outlook and Lynn will summarize our financial results. In addition to Lynn, we have other members of our management team present to answer questions after the prepared remarks. John Petrowitz is also on the call with us this morning.

Speaker 2

John will be staying on with CME through at least the end of the year as a special advisor to the company. Among other things, John's responsibilities will continue to be to we'll work with Investor Relations activities. But this is the first for John to be on a call, not in the CFO role. So John, please don't jump and Linda speaking. I'd like to thank you, John, for your over 8 years as CFO as well as your important work at CME prior to that.

Speaker 2

John has been a key part of every major milestone our company has achieved over the last 20 years, and we thank him for his many we look forward to continually working with John throughout the balance of the year. With that, I will turn to a few comments regarding the Q1, which was continued evidence of this new era of uncertainty. As I said in my Financial Times op ed from February, risk management has been elevated from a we are now executing a supporting player to the star attraction as investors are managing portfolios with near constant market challenges. Following the best year in CME Group's history, Q1 2023 average daily volume increased 4% from an extremely strong Q1 2022 to 26,900,000 contracts and was just short of our all time quarterly record average daily volume in the Q1 of 2020 of 27,000,000 contracts. This quarter included our all time highest single day volume was 66,300,000 contracts on March 13.

Speaker 2

All of this and other things have led us to the highest adjusted diluted EPS in the history of CME Group. Throughout the entire quarter, there were shifting perceptions about the Fed's near term rate path as well as significant banking concerns in March and the continued development of the sulfur market led to the increasing need for the management of interest rate risk. This drove 16% growth in our interest rate ADV to the record 14,500,000 contracts. Record March Sulphur futures ADV of 5,200,000 contract exceeded previous records seen in Eurodollar futures. And since quarter end, we successfully completed the migration of our Eurodollar open interest to SOFR without issue on April 15.

Speaker 2

In addition, our past investments in building out our auctions franchises are paying off. With such turbulent macroeconomic backdrop, options are an increasingly important risk management tool. 1st quarter options ADV grew 26% year over year to a record 5,800,000 contracts, including double digit growth across interest rates, equities and metals and 30% growth in non U. S. Trading activity.

Speaker 2

1st quarter options revenue grew 12% to a record we will be conducting $218,000,000 The Q1 was a great example of CME Group seamlessly doing what we are designed to do. The significant volatility spikes and associated turmoil affecting the banking sector in March further highlighted the systemic importance sound risk management practices by institutional participants. There are no guarantees, but hedging can provide certainty and the significant Q1 activity highlighted that some of today's most important trades are to manage risk. The future is more uncertain than ever, we know we can expect a whirlwind of geopolitical and economic hurdles to persist and we will continue to focus on innovating and offering market participants meaningful capital and operational efficiencies across a diverse and global relevant product set to manage their risk. With that, I will turn the call over to our new CFO, Lynn Fitzpatrick to cover the Q1 financial results.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Teri. CME had the best quarterly results in our history. During the Q1, CME generated over 1.4 we expect to be in revenue, up 7% compared with a strong Q1 in 2022. Overall, revenue growth outpaced volume growth of 4%. Market Data had a record revenue quarter, up 9% versus Q1 2022 to 166,000,000 the need for our products and data to manage risks in an uncertain market environment continue to build on the strength seen last year.

Speaker 3

Expenses on an adjusted basis were $459,000,000 for the quarter and $362,000,000 excluding license fees and we expect to generate approximately $12,000,000 towards our cloud migration. CME had an adjusted effective tax rate of 23.4%, which resulted in an adjusted net income of $882,000,000 up 15% from the Q1 last year an adjusted diluted earnings per share to common shareholders of $2.42 the highest adjusted quarterly net income and EPS in our history. Capital expenditures for the Q1 were approximately $16,000,000 Seemee paid dividends during the quarter of over $2,000,000,000 our ending cash balance was approximately $1,700,000,000 The team at CME Group remains focused on providing the risk management products needed by our clients and driving earnings growth for our shareholders. Before we open up the call for your questions, I'm going to briefly hand it back to Terry.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Lynn. And before we get to your questions, as Lidin said, I want to take a few just a moment to acknowledge Sean Tully, who announced his decision to retire from CME Group in June of this year. Since joining us in 2012, Sean has been a strong leader for our Financial Products business and continuing to grow that The period of tremendous growth and transformation, I especially want to recognize Sean for his outstanding job that he and his team did in the interest rates to facilitate the successful transition from LIBOR to SOPHIR. This was no small feat. As many people on this call remember, we had many conversations prior to the transition about what we're going to be able to transition or others going to do it.

Speaker 2

Sean and AGA and others did an amazing job of bringing 99.99 percent of the Sofa business here to CME Group, and now it's the largest contract in the world, surplanting what eurodollar futures used to be. It's really an amazing accomplishment. Following Sean's retirement in June, Tim McCourt, who has been overseeing our Equity Index and Foreign Exchange and Cryptocurrency Businesses will I'll now turn the call over to Sean's responsibilities and lead the organization covering our financial and OTC products as well. I have the utmost confidence in Tim's ability to manage this broader portfolio. So Sean, on behalf of everybody here, we'll have more accolades with you off the call.

Speaker 2

But Thank you for everything you've done and maybe you could say a few words to people that you've been talking to for so many years.

Speaker 4

Yes. Thank you so much, Terry. It has been an honor to work at CME Group these past 11 years to work with you, Terry, and the entire outstanding team at CME, with all of our customers, with our investors, with our analysts and with our regulators, together we delivered enormous value to market participants, including several $1,000,000,000 per day in margin efficiencies and many new products, including many new options, many new currencies in OTC swap clearing, Ultra 10 year futures, SOFR Futures and Options Ensemi turned SOFR. And for investors, in the Q1 of 2023, we delivered all time record revenue for our rates business with Sofar Futures and Options ADV exceeding the best ever quarter for YourDollar Futures and Options ADV historically, as well as delivering a 9.8% compounded annual growth rate in revenue for the rates business since the Q1 of 2012. Last, having worked closely with Tim McCourt and Aga Mirzo over the last several years, I am very confident that the financials business is in extremely capable hands going forward.

Speaker 4

Thank you to all of our customers. Thank you to all of my colleagues and thank you again, Terry.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Sean. Appreciate it very much. With that being said, we're going to get into your questions now and Sean will be participating in that. So I'm sure you will enjoy his answers as always. So with that, we'll turn it over to you for your questions.

Operator

Thank you. Our first question is from the line of Rich Rippetto with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Yes. Good morning, Terry and team. And first, I'd just like to echo your comments congrats, John P and Sean as well on their transitions. Anyway, So Terry, you brought up that risk management focus that you in your editorial pretty timely with a banking crisis 2 weeks afterwards. But down at the FIA, we talked about sort of the longer term impacts that it could have on risk management and utilization of the CME product.

Speaker 5

So I was just trying to get an update after more time has passed and just get some insight, I guess, from Terry and Sean about the conversations you have with risk management focus on these mid tier banks, what might change and what might it mean to the CME going forward?

Speaker 2

It's hard to predict the future, Rich, but we did say down at the conference you're referring to in Boca, because of what's going on and because of if you look at history, some of the things that have gone on and then return you've seen our business grow because people understand that they need to manage risk in order continue to stay in business for themselves. So some of these second and third tier banks who did not hedge some of their portfolios, this is a big push by not only Sean and Tim McCourt and their team, but also by Julia Winkler and her sales team to cross sell. But again, I think what's important here as we talked about some of these second and third tier banks mostly will be doing swaps, which we think is actually fine for us because they're normally going to be doing a against a larger bank and that larger bank will be doing the layoff with CME Group. So we see that as a net positive and that's kind of how we've been going through this internally with our own folks here, Rich, since we saw each other probably down in Boca and putting more work into that.

Speaker 2

So Julie and her team have been doing that along with John or Tim or Julie, you want to talk about it?

Speaker 4

I'll just say that we have initiated a sales campaign specifically focused on regional across the firm and we are very focused on providing them with the interest rate swaps and other products that they need in order to better manage their risk. We are very excited about offering them that, especially with our OTC interest rate swap clearing. And as Terry said, whatever swaps they do in addition to potentially increasing our OTC swap clearing business, the backside of those swaps will be hedged by larger banks, either using our futures or

Speaker 2

Tim or Jillian, do you

Speaker 6

want to hand

Speaker 7

it to Steph?

Speaker 8

I would just add, I think the relationships with a lot of these regional banks has definitely something we've been working on as we've got the term SOFR benchmark here at CME Group, this was a key asset of which these individuals, these firms needed access to this rate. And so getting out, licensing those firms up was an activity that we've been doing over the last year and a half. And so those relationships are not I mean, are still relatively new, but the fact that we have them within our client outreach is a key part of this and a lot of it is education and this is something that CME Group has a very long history of doing very well and something that we'll continue to do with these firms.

Speaker 2

Rich, does

Speaker 7

that give

Speaker 2

you a little bit of color where we're at?

Speaker 5

Yes, definitely. And the focus on risk management couldn't have been more timely. And it's been great working with both Sean and John. Thanks.

Speaker 9

Thanks a lot Rich. Really appreciate it. Thank you Rich.

Operator

Our next question is from Dan Fannon with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Speaker 10

Thanks. Good morning and congrats to both Sean and John as well. My question is on market data. Obviously, the price increase that went into effect drove some of the sequential growth and I guess record revenue, but you talk about also increasing subscribers. So Just curious about this is a good starting off or jumping off point here for revenue and then ultimately where these subscribers are coming from?

Speaker 10

Is it mostly retail or how we can think about momentum in the Market Data business.

Speaker 2

Well, I have Lynn start and then we'll go to Julie.

Speaker 3

Sure. Thanks, Dan. So if you look at that market data revenue this year, we did grow 9% off of the Q1 last year. So you do have the impact of the price increase, which went into in January. As a reminder, that was about a 4% increase for market data.

Speaker 3

Also within this line, you do have about 4,000,000 in audit fees and catch up payments for prior period activity, these do tend to be more episodic. For comparison, there was about 1,000,000 we have a number of different types of fees in Q4. So it's a combination of that pricing increase as well as the increased subscriber count, which I can turn to Julie to talk about what she's seeing there.

Speaker 8

Yes. So thanks for the question, Dan. Certainly last year throughout 2022, we also saw continued strong demand for our professional devices and our real time data. We offer the largest suite of proprietary data of anyone. And I think people, especially post pandemic, have seen the value in that and the fact that we've continued to invest in the data sets that we offer and the technology and how they are receiving that data.

Speaker 8

So Q1, we saw just a continuation of that trend. And also, there's other aspects of the business, particularly as we think about organic growth under our non display licensing. So this is where people have needs to utilize our data and other algorithms and trading applications. And so this is another part of the business, up almost 9%. And alongside all of this, we've set up in the last 2 years this dedicated sales team and I'd be remiss without That is having an impact on the results, right?

Speaker 8

We are in a position where historically we had not been out there selling market data and explaining to people what was actually available, and I think we're starting to see some uplift from that as well. So it is institutional users to your question. This is not coming from new retail participants.

Speaker 10

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question is from Alex Kramm with UBS. Please go ahead.

Speaker 11

Hey, good morning, everyone. I feel like this is a throwaway question that we ask every time after we have a big quarter like we had in the Q1, but I guess it has to be asked every time. Obviously, with April off to a slow start, I know we see this again, time and time again, you have a lot of volatility, a lot of changes in the environment and then things get a little bit quiet when people have to lick their wounds a little bit. But Curious, Terry, if there's anything you would point to that speak to the underlying fundamentals of the market, any particular slowdown in any particular client types or anything that would make you think differently around what you're seeing so far this quarter? I know it's hard to predict, but it's got to be asked.

Speaker 2

No. And I appreciate that, Alex. And it does need to be asked. And I think a couple of different things here are at play in April. April is historically one of the slowest months in the industry and for whatever reason it's been that way for a number of years.

Speaker 2

Don't have the reason why that is the case. One of them I guess would be that we don't have a role in April, so that's one thing of interest. But one of the things I look at is really not just only our company. I look at the broader industry across the board. And if I thought that we were the only ones suffering in the lower volume environment in the month of April, why everybody else Gaining, I'd be a little bit more concerned.

Speaker 2

And I'm talking apples to apples in the futures world. So that is not the case. Everybody's kind of on the same pace in April as they've been historically. So this is nothing new and it's a phenomenon that's going on for years. When I was younger, we saw The months of August being traditionally a slower one because of European holiday shutting down and things of that nature.

Speaker 2

Things just kind of move around a bit and for whatever reason this happens to be That we've seen in over the last several years. But what's interesting about April is we've had our metals complex has been up, Our ag complex is up and our energy, say 33% of metals ag, running around 15% in energy up, it's still over 3% for the month of April. So that is a bright sign. So the beauty of CME Group Analytics, as you know, we're not just 1 asset class, we're a multi asset class organization, so when we do see slowdowns, we have said historically see pickups in others and I think this is an example of that, maybe not to the volume net of $66,300,000 but we are definitely seeing an uptick in other asset classes when others are down.

Speaker 11

All right. Fair enough. I'll jump back in the queue.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Alex.

Operator

Our next question is from Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Speaker 12

Great. Thanks. Good morning and also congrats to John and Sean and Lynn as well. Question on it's a 2 part question, but mostly focused on the debt ceiling negotiations. And the 2 partners are, your number one, how do you see the negotiations as well as just the continued debate on the Fed cycle and the volatility that could occur in the 10 year and the long end of the curve impacting volumes, maybe just some commentary around that.

Speaker 12

And then I guess and maybe that's for Sean. And then on the debt ceiling negotiations, maybe, Terry, just your view of whether this time is similar to past negotiations? Do you think things will be you reconciled well or is this time different? And then I guess if we do have a default scenario, what how would that impact the treasury futures?

Speaker 2

So this is purely a speculation question at best as you can imagine, Brian, because I've been around long enough to watch the Barack Obama. So you never know what's going to happen. I can only tell you a few things. And one of the things I'm saying to my folks here in the organization is When you look at the setup today in Congress, one of the things I look at as far as where this may or may not go, you can only see so much, right? So The speaker is going to propose a piece of legislation that's got massive cuts associated with it over the next 10 years.

Speaker 2

The President is not going to like that. And in return, the speaker is offering up $1,500,000,000,000 in lifting to the debt ceiling. That's going to be the legislation. That may pass the House, but if they lose 5 votes, then it doesn't pass the House. So pretty interesting dynamic right now.

Speaker 2

That probably won't go anywhere in the Senate or It probably won't go anywhere with the administration. So then we go on to the next round of negotiations. So let's think a little bit about how the negotiations are working in Washington right now. As you recall, if anybody is a student of politics, you saw that there was 15 rounds of votes going for the Speaker of the House. And in those 15 rounds, there was a handful of people that were trying to extract certain things for their benefit, maybe holding the speaker's feet to the fire and certain things, I was not part of it, but you can only assume what was going on because the votes finally got to a place, Which means there was a negotiation going on.

Speaker 2

So I'm assuming that negotiation will continue on, but the difference this time is you're dealing with a much different Congress with Republicans holding the majority, obviously, in the House side and them looking to extract a lot of cuts. Whether you agree with it or not is not for me to make that decision. I'm to tell you what I see. So I wouldn't be surprised if they don't get something passed out of the gate. And but then we'll have to state where it goes.

Speaker 2

Historically, people never wanted to go back to their districts and be the person who did not vote for a debt we have a

Speaker 6

very strong sales

Speaker 2

force in the U. S. Economy or hurt the U. S. Stance.

Speaker 2

We had a downgrade in this country before. I'm not saying it's happening again, but there are people that they have firm beliefs that you have to look at the long picture and what the government spending is out of control. These are not my words, these are theirs. So I just want to make sure I say that. So I think it's going to be a little bit more tricky than historical debt ceiling that we've seen.

Speaker 2

And as far as the Fed cycle goes, I'll let Sean comment on that what it means to it and then maybe Sunil can comment about the treasuries and what it means If anything to

Speaker 4

us. Yes. Thanks very much for the question and thank you, Terry. In terms of the Fed, just looking at our futures markets, it's expected that the Fed will tighten 25 basis points at the upcoming FOMC meeting likely, and then over the next year and a half, reduce rates By 200 basis points. So obviously, there's huge uncertainty built into that yield curve that people are going to need to manage.

Speaker 4

Going from this extraordinary cycle tightening cycle, excuse me, to a very quick large easing cycle and the exact timing of that, it creates an incredibly uncertain environment where people are going to need to hedge risk. So I think that that cycle will we will continue to be positive for us. Bigger picture in terms of treasury issuance, in regards to the debt ceiling. In the first quarter of this year, the U. S.

Speaker 4

Treasury only issued $64,000,000,000 net of coupons. So with a $1,400,000,000,000 deficit, the treasury is not issuing a lot of coupons and obviously a $64,000,000,000 in new issuance is They've been driving down the treasury general account in order to be able to do that. So I would expect we have a very large increase going forward in U. S. Treasury issuance in order to cover that very large deficit and that would at some point provide a very nice tailwind for our business.

Speaker 4

And with that, I'll hand it over to Sunil.

Speaker 7

I'll cover 2 areas. 1 is operational and the other is risk. From an operational perspective, the Treasury Market Practitioners Group has put out a document on best practices on handling maturing securities and coupons, CME works with SIFMA and other industry bodies to actually align itself on the operational side. On the risk side, we have handled these scenarios, similar scenarios in the past. We don't take it lightly.

Speaker 7

And as Terry pointed out, we are also taking into account a different environment, a political environment. So taking all of those into account, we manage risk with respect to our collateral and as well as our interest rate market, both long end and the short end. And as an example, you can see that in March was one of the most stressful periods for rates and the clearinghouse, the CME Clearinghouse and its clearing members really manage that very well. So I have no doubt they'll do the same.

Speaker 2

So Brian, I think your question is very relevant and deserves a lot of attention. We can only do what we can do here. We're here to manage risk for people who are analyzing these situations day in and day out. My comments as it relates to the 15 rounds to elect a speaker, could that play into the debt ceiling? People might Well, that is nothing one has nothing to do with the other.

Speaker 2

You can only analyze what's the amount of information you have and that's the limited amount of information Right now, so we are preparing as Sunil and Sean have said to make sure that we are prepared for our clients to manage risk. And I agree with Sean, I think it creates a tailwind for us on the outcome of how the government settles this one way or another. So, but thank you for your question.

Speaker 6

Yes, that's a

Speaker 12

lot of great color. Thanks. Thanks so much everyone.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Brian.

Operator

Our next question is from Kyle Voigt with KBW. Please go ahead.

Speaker 13

Hey, good morning.

Speaker 14

I just want to make

Speaker 13

sure I'm understanding the dynamics around the LIBOR transition correctly, because as you noted earlier in April, we did see a material step down in euro dollar futures open interest as the product transitioned, but we didn't really see a commensurate step up in SOFR futures open interest at that time. So If we look at aggregate futures OI for the rates complex, it's now down year on year. I'm just trying to understand whether to interpret that change NOI trend over the past couple of months as more related to a short term dynamic around the LIBOR transition or Whether this is a result of the extreme interest rate volatility we saw in March, and if that caused any deleveraging more broadly across your user base. So any additional color, helping us understand what's kind of driving some of the OI changes in rates specifically given the moving pieces here would be very helpful.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Kyle. Sean, you want to start and then I'll jump in. Yes. It's a

Speaker 4

very good question. Thanks, Kyle. The interest rate business just went through it was arguably the single largest transition in its entire history. And Kyle, I'm very glad to say that if you look at the year over year open interest for the interest rate futures and options complex is up 2%. Yes, it's only up 2%, but it is up 2% having gone through that transition.

Speaker 4

You are Correct. We saw a small uplift in the overall open interest, but only small. If you look at what we did, on April 15 is we converted each and every YourDollar future and each and every YourDollar option into its respective sulfur future and sulfur options. As you can imagine, there are participants who would have had offsetting positions between those 2 different instruments, And therefore, those trades would have compressed. If you look at the Q1, another question we've gotten a lot historically is what was the basis trading or the spread trading between SOFR Futures and your dollar futures, and that was in the Q1 about 150,000 contracts a day.

Speaker 4

So we saw a compression. It was very uncertain from my perspective and at my level, we do not see the individual accounts and the individual They are confidential inside the FCNs. So we would not have known what level of compression we would have gotten through that process and you can see the results. Again, I am heartened that overall, open interest in listed futures and options is up year over year.

Speaker 2

And Kyle, I think some of the things you got to look at is also, if you had a concern, did anybody else pick up open interest in a listed product such as sulfur and why we didn't get it. And as I said in my earlier comments, 99.99 percent of all open interest is here at CME Group. So we didn't see that. And for whatever reason people Take down risk or add risk that is their decision as we said earlier we're here to manage it. So open interest fluctuations up and down are something that we've all seen historically in

Speaker 13

Very helpful. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Kyle.

Operator

Our next question is from Owen Lau with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Speaker 10

Good morning and thank you for taking my question. So CME has a Strong balance sheet. Could you please give us an update on the M and A strategy and any gaps that you would like to fill both locally and internationally given that the valuation of many companies have come down quite a bit. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Sure. Thanks, Owen. So certainly M and A is something that we are comfortable with and we've used a number of different tools over the years from large scale M and A to creation of joint ventures to our most recent in the index joint venture with S and P last year, we're always looking at what is out in the market and looking for opportunities for us to create value we do feel that we are coming from a position of strength though given some of our past transactions. So we don't feel a pressure to act unless we see something where we really can create that value. So I would say that nothing has changed in that regard.

Speaker 3

It's something that is part of our tool chest that we are happy to use when we see the right opportunity come up.

Speaker 10

Got it. Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Our next question is from the line of Alex Blostein with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Speaker 15

Hi, good morning guys. Thanks for the question. I was hoping you could spend a minute on competitive dynamics in the equity derivative space. Obviously, SPX options at C Buff seen a really nice growth and a lot of it came from the dailies. Understanding that it's a different products and then E Mini and Micro and Mini Futures for you guys.

Speaker 15

But are you seeing any evidence of substitution away from your complex and if so, what sort of customer group is that mostly prevalent in? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Alex. Tim, you want to go ahead and address that?

Speaker 6

Yes. Thanks, Alex, for the question. I think when we look at the option growth in the equity complex, it's certainly a growth versus growth story and we're seeing very strong growth here at CME. When we look at the equity options complex at CME for options on futures, we've had a record Q1 ADV of over 1,300,000 contracts, which is up 7% versus 2022 full year and up 11% versus Q1 of 2022. When we look at some of this growth, you can't ignore the multi year trend of increasingly short dated options coming to market as a result of the market wanting more precise risk management.

Speaker 6

The same day expiring options were 0 DTEs is the latest step in that trend where CME also has 0 DTEs every day of the weeks in the S and P out for 5 weeks. We continue to introduce products we're important to our customers and we've seen very strong growth in those same day expiring options. They're up over 41% in Q1 versus the 2020 we expect to full year volume. But when we look at these expirations, it's important to note at CME that we also have over 50% growth in Q1 we have a very strong year in our options that are longer than 1 week in expiration. The story at CME is not just the same day expiring option.

Speaker 6

We have very strong growth and growing open interest in our complex with the Q1 average open interest for equity options being 5,200,000 contracts, up about 8% year over year. But also let's look more broadly at CME. This is not just an equity options story. We have very strong options offering at CME with a record Q1 ADV of 5,800,000 contracts with 26% growth versus Q1 of 2022 across all of our options and also set quarterly records not only in equity, but also interest rate options at CME. We've also had very strong growth in our metal complex options up about 24% and our non U.

Speaker 6

S. Option ADV is up about 30% over the same period last year. So not only are we growing, we're not certainly not seeing our participants turn to other markets because they can manage all of their option related risk here at CME.

Speaker 2

Eric?

Speaker 9

Yes, I'd just add Tim to talk more broadly. I mean, this is such a differentiating factor for CME Group where we've got core benchmark The franchise as a whole and just to repeat what Terry said at the top of the call, we said a record revenue quarter of $218,000,000 in Q1 of this year and that was broad growth across the entire And as it relates to the sticky value proposition customers are using the story particularly as it relates options as a broader part of their overall set of risk management tools. And yes, we're seeing a shift to short dated options. We ourselves set a record in our weekly options across the franchise as a whole 1,400,000 contracts, but that actually was not what drove that record 5,800,000 that actually represented about 25 of our options compact down from 30% last quarter. So our growth is in term risk management tools out across the curve.

Speaker 9

End users, open interest holders, our biggest client segment growth driver for the entire franchise was buy side. That tells you who's using our products. And particularly we saw that ring true particularly strongly in our energy complex in Henry Hub Natural Gas franchise. Not only did we Our natural gas options business up 16% against really difficult comps of last year, but we're seeing that business up again in April as Terry referenced energy up as a whole about 3% this year, in large part due to what we're seeing, in Henry Hub gas options and future. So it's a broad based story.

Speaker 9

It's one that differentiates us from our competitors, it's term open interest and you know what open interest means to transactional revenues and volume and client capture. We're excited about that. We've had great success in building our front end. We'll continue to serve the needs of customers globally. And I think the data points we shared today speak to a strong strengthening franchise for futures and options.

Speaker 15

Okay. Thanks for

Speaker 2

the detail. But just to

Speaker 15

be clear, you're announcing substitution with competitive products and equity options.

Speaker 6

That is correct.

Speaker 2

Thanks. Thanks, our

Operator

next question is from Chris Allen with Citi. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Yes, morning everyone. Maybe you could just talk a little bit about pricing and rate per contract. I was wondering if you could give any color what the price would look like on a full quarter basis if the And on the member mix shifting, is this just something you're seeing in the Q1 of this year? Or has it been a longer term trend? I know you've had new sales efforts in different asset classes too, whether it's regional banks or other players on FX and things like that.

Speaker 5

So just trying to get a better sense of pricing trajectory moving forward.

Speaker 3

Sure, Chris. This is Lynn. I'll start on that. If you look at the pricing increases overall, we saw a $0.0130 increase on 23% increase in volume sequentially. So we saw a real Strong capture there.

Speaker 3

What we're seeing if we look year over year where volume levels are a bit more similar, going from about 26,000,000 contracts a day last Q1 to nearly 27 contracts a day this year, we saw a 3% uplift in RPC. So if we take a step back and look overall, we still feel comfortable with that guidance we provided of the 4% to 5% we expect to increase based on the full year assuming similar volume to 2022. We feel like that has really pulled through. What we're most excited about is we are seeing continued strong liquidity and tight bid ask spreads across the products we're not seeing an impact to our markets based on these changes. In terms of the changes on the member mix, that is going to ebb and flow.

Speaker 3

It depends on the product and it depends on the time. I don't we'll see an overall long term trend on that.

Speaker 9

Great. Thank you. Chris, it's the you only saw 2 months out of a full quarter impact. So you see a full quarter impact in Q2.

Speaker 5

Understood. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Chris.

Operator

Our next question is from Ken Worthington with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Speaker 16

Hi, good morning. I wanted to follow-up on Alex's question on 0 date options. We're hearing more market makers are using them to delta hedge. Is there any pricing advantage that you see in 0 date options versus futures, if so, why wouldn't this trend sort of continue? And do you have an estimate of how much of the e mini business is really used to delta hedge by your institutional investors?

Speaker 6

Yes. Thanks, Ken. So, I think it's an interesting question, right? One, I don't necessarily agree with the concept that 0 DTE options are I mean fundamentally options are non linear products that have very dramatically different risk profiles intraday that do not line up with the one form movements of the index that our future does. So I don't think it's replacing because I think that is not necessarily a fit for purpose hedge in replace of E Mini options.

Speaker 6

The one thing that I will say that's great is when we look at the totality of the equity ecosystem, our E Mini complex at CME is the leading price formation for equity index products across the globe. As such, we're also the preferred hedge vehicle for the totality of index trading that goes on, whether that's hedging SPX options, whether that's So these are things that we all see that risk recycling into our market as the primary venue for equities. When we look though also at the market maker activity with really relating to your question from just what's publicly available as a function of RPC, Trading those options in lieu of e Minis is not a cost effective strategy for market makers or members at CME, and I don't necessarily think that is happening from the fundamental

Speaker 2

So Ken, we appreciate your question. We appreciate your hearing, but I think there's So I'm talking in your book, but I think Tim gave a pretty specific example about true risk management and what it is. So thank you for that question though.

Speaker 10

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question is from Michael Cyprys with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Great. Thank you. Good morning. Continuing with the options theme, but a different question here coming back to the strong and record options activity that you guys can you just talk about the sustainability of this level of activity? How broad based is that across your customer set?

Speaker 4

And what would you say is the opportunity for continued options usage across your customer percent? And maybe you could talk about some of the steps that you're planning to take over the next 12 months to 18 months around product development to drive continued growth and options from here.

Speaker 9

Derek? Yes, great question. The reality is the growth of our options is accelerating growth in our futures. As we mentioned before, it's a sticky value proposition for customers that are using options in their portfolio hedging and the cross margin efficiencies they can't get anywhere else. To your question on the kind of spread of participation across our This is a broad set of participants that's driving growth.

Speaker 9

As I mentioned before, buy side in a record quarter for us, our buy side participation in options was up over 40%. Props are up in kind of the mid-twenty percent. We saw growth in retail. We saw commercials and banks participate. So this is broad based participation.

Speaker 9

As I mentioned before, can't stress enough that the reason the customers are using options here is because they're adding here is because they're adding increasing amounts of that to their portfolios out across the curve. So Tim mentioned the position that we have in open interest in the equity side of the business, we're seeing that growth across all our asset classes as well. What I think was mentioned briefly before that with the overall franchise being up at record levels, our non U. S. Growth is even Faster than our growth inside the U.

Speaker 9

S. Growing at 30%. So we see growth across current segments. We see growth across geographies. When you actually look at the rates of growth out across the board, we saw our EMEA options business up 41%, our LatAm options customer business up 29% and our Asia Pacific Business up 16%.

Speaker 9

So as it relates to the sustainability, it relates to the client efforts relates to the front end work we've done in CME Direct, which is our own front end. We've got record participation and record revenue generation through our own front end, which is expanding access to clients and it's either directly through our connection to us or through our partners as well. On top of that, we've been continuing to build option specific sales assets in our regions in Europe and Asia. We're seeing the fruits of that. Julie can speak to the sales campaigns that we execute put in place in Europe and Asia to draw more customers U.

Speaker 9

S. To increase their participation in options across the board. So hopefully that addresses the kind of the growth in on the opportunity set, we continue to see outsized growth outside the U. S. And we'll continue to grow and develop those products that suit customer needs.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Derek. Appreciate it. Thank you, Michael.

Operator

Our next question is from the line of Simon Klinch with Atlantic Equities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 14

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if I could just get some housekeeping numbers for you from in terms of the cash collateral versus non cash and sort of what the earned rate was on the cash collateral as well, please?

Speaker 3

Lynn? Yes, sure. So if we look at the cash collateral for this quarter, we earned $93,000,000 on those balances. The average balances were down a bit from last quarter, but our return did increase from 32 basis points to 33 basis points. So if we look at the averages.

Speaker 3

If we look at Q1, we were at $109,600,000 in average balances in cash. That compares to $117,600,000 that we saw in Q4. On the non cash collateral side, which may be helpful as well, we had average balances for Q1 of $99,200,000,000 that's up from $89,700,000,000 that we saw in Q4. And a reminder that those the earnings on the non cash collateral comes we'll be

Speaker 6

conducting a few questions through in our other revenue line.

Speaker 10

Okay, great. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Simon. Sure.

Operator

Our next question is from Craig Siegenthaler with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Speaker 17

Thanks. Good morning, everyone.

Speaker 2

Good morning. I

Speaker 17

have a follow-up to Chris' question, but wanted to really focus on the rates business. The rates RPC was down 1% quarter on quarter despite the 1Q hike. So I'm wondering if you can comment on the underlying organic trends, which impacted the blended RPC and explain why our revenues per contract trended lower despite the hikes.

Speaker 4

Sean? Yes, sure. Very happy to do that. If you look at the Q1, and actually if you look at the year to date, Our treasury futures overall, year to date are only up 1% in terms of their volumes. So the huge growth that we saw in the Q1 was driven by the short term interest rate futures.

Speaker 4

And as you know, and as we have reported many times, the RPC on our STRS complex is about $0.10 below our Lutiris complex. So that massive increase that we saw The short end driven by the Silver Futures and Options, as well as the huge growth, where we do have some volume tiers, rights had led to a somewhat lower RPC. If you look at the RPC for Sulfur Futures and Options, post the February 1 increase, Silver Futures and Options RPC are now matching the historic levels of Eurodollar Futures and Options. So we have delivered the volumes and the RPCs for those products and that drop in RPC relative to the much stronger growth in STIRS is not a surprise. It's

Speaker 3

Yes. And if I could just take it to the higher level, Craig, if you look at the growth in volume versus Q4, our rate savings was up 47%. So that 1% decrease that you're seeing in RPC really shows that the changes in pricing, including the roll off of some of the SOFR incentives, all of that is offsetting higher volume tiers that you would see with that really strong growth in volume. So that RPC result was particularly strong in

Speaker 2

Thanks, Greg. Appreciate it.

Operator

Our next question is a follow-up question from Rich Repetto with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Yes. Just a follow-up for my friend Derek in Energy. And you got to be breathing a little sigh of relief as Year over year comps dramatically go down from 1Q to 2Q. I think last year energy after The Ukraine crisis settled out or didn't settle out, but the impact sort of settled out. The volumes went down 23%.

Speaker 5

So I guess the question is, Derek, is can you just give us an update on energy overall with the health of the energy complex and you've seen $2,000,000 or so ADB, but again it will be much easier comps 2Q going forward.

Speaker 9

Yes, thanks Rich. That's a great point. If you look at actually the Q1 energy ADV, yes, just below $2,100,000 when you compare that full year of 2022 that had that huge bump in that tough comp that we're facing in Q1 of this year, that's actually at 3% versus full year 2022 and it's up 14% sequentially versus Q4. So the trend is very much what we expected to see not only and this is actually more important. If you look at the rebuild and restocking of our open interest, we're up about $1,900,000 contracts open interest in our WTI futures that based and Brent that same trend that kind of drifted down over the course of the year, it came back up.

Speaker 9

So we're seeing a nice resumption of participation from financial players, ETFs, financial players, hedge funds, asset managers and we're seeing that reflected in the open interest trend. So once we saw the kind of the deleveraging impact of higher margins begin to recede, that brought some financial players back in. We're seeing more ETF broadening the complex as a whole. I think 2 of the things we're most excited about in our energy business, I think Q4 U. S.

Speaker 9

Export of just over 4,000,000 barrels a day that puts WTI squarely in the middle of global energy markets. So what are we doing about that? Well, not only are we seeing a resumption of activity WTI, but we have about 5 years ago seen the structural shift in the energy market, we recognize that WTI being a global benchmark needed to be explicitly connected to the export community. So back in 2018, we built a suite products we call our crude grades contracts that are basis contracts that trade primarily in Houston and Permian, the Midland contract as a basis to our WTI contract. So customers that are involved in either domestic or more importantly the export market are increasing their activity in those grades contracts.

Speaker 9

The reason I mentioned that is because we just we're just sitting below. We just hit a recent record open interest in those contracts of 490,000 contracts open, again those trade as a basis to our WTI contract. So both reinforces WTI and explicitly connects WTI to the global export market. We set an individual day volume trading record on the 8th February at 57,000 contracts. And the last point that I'd make on that is the significant participation is coming from commercial and physical players.

Speaker 9

The last point that I think we'd want to I'd be remiss in not speaking to is the Henry Hub franchise. Similar story there with LNG facilities coming online in the U. S. And the success that we're seeing in the low price gas development here in the U. S, our Henry Hub franchise actually saw an increase on the future side in market share back up above 80% in competitive market and we're seeing that serve as the primary basis point for trading and the pricing of LNG cargoes leaving the U.

Speaker 9

S. And increasingly lost Russian gas to Europe and Asia. So we think the volume trends are solid. Terry mentioned a little bit earlier in answering a separate question that our volumes the commodity side generally are up in the Q2, and we're seeing energy follow that trend as well with energy volume so far month to date Q2 in April up 3% really led by Henry Hub. So a lot to like in what's going on.

Speaker 9

Happy to take more of those questions offline. There's a lot of detail there, but we like the global basis position we have in both the natural gas market and crude oil market.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Rich. Thanks, Derek.

Operator

And our next question is also a follow-up from Alex Kramm with UBS. Please go ahead.

Speaker 11

Yes. Hey, thanks again guys. Just wanted to squeeze in a couple of follow ups on the sulfur LIBOR transition. One, I know this was a huge lift for both you guys, but then also the industry. So a lot of resources went into that.

Speaker 11

So now that it's basically behind us, just wondering what's next, I guess, when it comes to sulfur. I mean, do you think sulfur is being used like LIBOR in the past? What's different? Is there still a lot of the question is, can the sulfur flourish even more in the future? And then secondly, just a quick one.

Speaker 11

I think the OTC transition went on Friday. I think huge clearing volumes that we observed. I think you actually were charging for that, maybe you can just clarify because just wondering if we need to expect a huge OTC revenue number in the Q2. Maybe you can compare it to maybe we saw in the Q1, in terms of run rates, so we're not too surprised there. It seems like it may have been a good revenue day for you.

Speaker 4

Yes, Alex. So really good questions. Really appreciate you pointing those out. So two questions there. In terms of answering the first one and so for replacing EuroDollars or LIBOR, it's very clear from the Q1 with SOFR Futures and Options beating the all time best quarter in the 40 year history of your dollar futures and options So far futures and options are being used just as intensively and just as extensively as your dollar futures and options ever were.

Speaker 4

So that's a very positive sign. In addition to that, in terms of the long term strategic positioning of the business, the interest rates business is better positioned today than it ever As been before, I would argue, in its entire history. And a part of the reason there is the Global Banking System has turned to C and E terms over for lending. There are now more than $3,700,000,000,000 worth of loans across the world and I think now nearly 90 different countries that are based on CME term SOFR that are based on CME's SOFR futures. So 3,700,000,000,000 worth of loans, more than 2,400 individual institutions that have been licensed, which Julie mentioned earlier, gives us a huge opportunity relative to cross selling opportunities and to increase our penetration of folks like regional banks where they have had to license our CME term so far and create that relationship with us through that.

Speaker 4

So I think that that's been a very positive for us, especially again, you know, everyone knows, U. S. Dollar LIBOR owned by ICE Benchmark Administration and under U. S. Law under the LIBOR Act and recently selected by the FCA in the UK, CME term sulfur is the safe harbor.

Speaker 4

So CME term sulfur will be used by ICE Bench market administration started on July 1, in their U. S. Dollar synthetic LIBOR in order to manage tough legacy contracts. So we have replaced U. S.

Speaker 4

Dollar LIBOR. That's a huge opportunity for us and again strategically better positioned. In terms of future growth, I'm hugely excited, as I always am, as you've heard me on many years on this call. We redesigned when we launched Sofar Futures and Options, we redesigned the way packs and bundles, it's a technical issue, but we redesigned how packs and bundles are quoted in the market and traded. That's going to make it much easier for us to launch hopefully later this year options on SulfurPAXAN bundles.

Speaker 4

Those options on sulfur packs and bundles, you've heard me say this before so many times, we love to have listed, cleared, standardized contracts that are lower total and the OTC equivalent. Well, options on packs and bundles are going to be listed, cleared, standardized lower total cost Alternative to the swaptions market. The swaptions market isn't cleared. So I'm massively excited about that opportunity for the sulfur business that we didn't have with EuroDollars Your dollars weren't originally designed with that in mind. When we designed the sulfur futures and options, we had that in mind from day 1.

Speaker 4

In addition to that, we're very excited about Ester. Our Ester futures is the most liquid European short term risk free rate contract in the world. And we're very excited about our TBA futures and other futures that we've launched. So the pipeline that we have in front of us for further development is very strong and I would say it's the strongest it's ever been.

Speaker 2

So just to put a finishing up on Sean's points and I would never try to Repeat them because go ahead.

Speaker 4

Sorry, OTC conversion and fees, I did miss that question. Sorry. So we did charge, you are correct. We did charge for that conversion. And it was a much lower charge than we normally charge.

Speaker 4

And I think we posted $10 So it's $10 per swap. That is a published fee. So yes, we did charge for that event.

Speaker 2

But Alex, you were right to point out about the conversion into our futures market and the growth thereof. But as you just heard from Sean, we believe that this is obviously an ongoing marathon we will continue to build on to this franchise, but we are excited for the future and the distraction of moving euro dollars to silver is over, which allows us to do the other things that Sean referenced. That's the exciting part from my standpoint where I look at this. So the growth is a very exciting perspective going forward. So Thank you, Steve.

Speaker 11

Thanks again.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

And it appears we have no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call back to management for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Well, I want to thank all of you for participating in today's call. And I especially want to thank my entire team at CME Group. The global employee base all throughout the world has been able to deliver the results that we were able to present to you today. And I think it's Massively important to continue to drive opportunities and efficiencies for your customers because as we do that we will drive value to our That's the equation we live by. We thank you all very much.

Speaker 2

I want to thank again my entire team. Thank you.

Operator

And that does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you all for your participation and kindly ask that you please disconnect your lines. Have a great day everyone.

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Earnings Conference Call
CME Group Q1 2023
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