CME Group, the derivatives exchange operator, reported record average daily volume for the third quarter and said volumes in the year to date are higher than the record volumes at the same time in 2025.

On 21 October 2026 CME reported that average daily volume rose to a third-quarter record of 29.4 million contracts, up 16% from the same period last year.

Non-U.S. average daily volume also reached a third-quarter high this year of nine million contracts. This was  driven by growth in energy products, up 40%, agricultural products increasing 28% and equity index products rising 24%.

The derivatives exchange also reported all-time high average daily volumes for July of 27 million contracts, up 23% from a year ago, and 31.8 million for September, an increase of 22% from a year ago. Average daily volume in October 2026 is currently tracking at highest October ADV level on record.

Lynne Fitzpatrick, chief financial officer of CME Group, said on the results call on 21 October 2026 that fourth quarter volume is surpassing last year’s record fourth quarter by 17%, and the group is tracking 12% ahead of last year’s record volume in the year to date.

She added: “We remain firmly on track to deliver another record year and our focus remains on delivering deep liquid markets and maximizing capital efficiencies for our clients and strong earnings for our shareholders.”

Terry Duffy, chairman and chief executive of CME Group, said on a results call that beyond the strong volume growth, the underlying health of the business is best reflected in open interest and the significant capital efficiencies the group provides to customers.

Open interest reached 128 million contracts at the end of the third quarter, the highest open interest at the end of September in CME’s history according to Duffy, with open interest continuing to grow in October.

Duffy said product innovation remains central to CME’s strategy and will continue to be a key driver of performance and the ability to serve clients effectively.

“However, innovation must always be anchored in market integrity, financial safeguards, and client protection,” he added. “Innovation without real risk management is not progress and has the potential to create systemic risk.”

CME has sued the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over the regulator’s approval of crypto perpetual futures in the U.S., arguing that the contracts are swaps because they use a funding rate.  Duffy said: “We feel very strongly about our case and we will abide by the court’s decision.”

Compute futures

CME is working closely with Silicon Data, which is backed by trading firm DRW and provides GPU market intelligence and benchmarking, to launch a compute futures market, pending regulatory review. The CFTC has extended the comment period on CFTC’S filing for another 45 days, which Duffy said takes it to 9 November 2026.

“We think this is a product that needs to get out when you look at all the conversations around data centers, AI, hyperscalers and chips,” Duffy added. “People are contacting us about how they can manage risk in this ever-changing landscape, so I would hope that the government would allow this product to move forward sooner rather than later.”

Derek Sammann, global head of commodities markets at CME Group, agreed on the call that compute futures  have been a “tremendous source” of client engagement and demand as the group has been working on the product for almost two years, including looking for a robust index provider.

Sammann argued that Silicon Data can provide data at huge scale across dozens of platforms and thousands of data points in all types of transactions, including the forward curve, which is crucial for developing an index that will be the reference for a futures contract. He added: “Another important point is that their index is already IOSCO compliant, meaning it is globally ready to be adopted by the community for the benchmark product.”

24/7 trading

In the third quarter CME also started 24/7 trading for 1-oz gold futures on 24 July 2026 and 100-oz silver futures on 11 September 2026. Cryptocurrency 24/7 trading launched on 29 May 2026 and CME said more than 361,000 contracts ($3.7bn) have traded since launch, with an average of just over 20,000 ($206m) per weekend.

“CME Group’s 1-oz gold and 100-oz silver contracts are the largest pool of regulated weekend trading volumes compared with offshore perpetual markets and other futures contracts,” said the firm.

Average daily volume for 24/7 trading of 1-oz gold futures was more than 15,000 over the weekend timeframe making up nearly 20% of total 1-oz gold futures ADV. For 24/7 trading of 100-oz silver futures, average daily volume was over 5,000 over the weekend timeframe, making up more than 30% of total ADV.

However, CME withdrew its filing to launch 24/7 trading for a 10-barrel oil future which it said would provide a transparent, regulated alternative to the 24/7 oil contracts that other venues have introduced in the marketplace. For example Hyperliquid, a decentralized blockchain derivatives protocol, provides 24/7 trading of perpetual oil futures outside the U.S. Hyperliquid gained attention when tokenized commodities and perpetual futures continued to trade on the decentralized finance (DeFi) platform after the U.S. and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran in February when traditional exchanges were closed over the weekend.

“U.S. participants are trading overseas on markets where they are not supposed to be participating,” said Duffy. “But we have not seen any evidence of policing of that activity so I’m surprised our 24/7 oil contract got held up.”

Duffy continued that the filing was withdrawn because commercial firms want to focus on bigger contracts and did not want to staff up another desk.

In the third quarter CME also launched several new products including single stock futures on 27 July 2026 and CME Group FutureSports Indexes (CME FSPI) on the National Hockey League.

More than 12 retail platforms are actively offering CME’s single stock futures. CME said volume is strengthening with nearly 350,000 contracts ($3.4bn notional) traded since launch, and average daily open interest reaching 16,000 contracts in September. Tim McCourt, global head of equities, FX and alternative products at CME Group, said on the call that single stock futures are off to a “strong” start and he is encouraged by the global participation in this new product.

Julie Winkler, chief commercial officer at CME Group, said on the call that it has been a busy year for product launches as CME has launched 368 new products so far this year. She said: “It proves that we can move quickly and we are the only traditional exchange offering 24/7 products.”

Capital savings

Winkler said CME is also advancing its execution technology and introducing industry-first functionality such as Treasury Link.

The latter connects CME’s interest rate futures with the cash Treasury liquidity pool on BrokerTec, enabling transparent, centralized spread trading on CME’s technology platform Globex. Clients can use Treasury Link to transact the differential between both markets with one atomic transaction, eliminating legging risk, reducing friction and maximizing capital efficiency. Clients have been testing Treasury Link which is due to go live in the first quarter of 2027, pending regulatory review.

The group generated a new high of $100bn in average daily margin savings in the third quarter.  The increase in margin savings in the third quarter was primarily driven by higher equity index volumes and increased fixed income, currencies and commodities cross-margining, which grew from $1bn earlier in the year to $2.3bn on average in September.

Duffy added that the firm is on track to launch CME Securities Clearing on 7 December 2026 in advance of the SEC’s Treasury clearing mandate coming into effect and with U.S. debt at record levels. The group said this offers another capital-efficient clearing option “precisely when the U.S. Treasury market needs it most.”

Winkler said the new single stock futures also contribute to capital savings for clients.

“On the institutional side this is a capital and margin efficiency play,” she added. “The ability to cross-margin single stock futures against equity index products is helping them unlock additional equity financing capacity.”

She continued that buy-side firms are also embedding single stock futures into their systematic QIS strategies and long/short equity models.

Cloud migration

Duffy added: “We also made strong progress in our cloud migration, making CME Group the only exchange to offer clients the choice of both co-location and cloud-managed services to expand access to our markets for years to come.”

Initial performance testing for CME Globex has been completed in the cloud and the group said it is reaching new milestones in the ongoing migration of CME markets, including faster round-trip times for trading.

CME said it is working to ensure clients can access both Google Cloud-managed services and co-location capabilities in Aurora in late 2027. Livestock market migration to the cloud will take place out of the new Aurora Region in late 2027.

Financials

CME reported record third-quarter revenue of $1.7bn, up 13% versus the same quarter in 2025, including a new all-time quarterly record for market data revenue of $243m.  Fitzpatrick said market data revenues were up 20% and delivered the 34th consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth.

Adjusted net income of $1.1bn, 13% ahead of the third quarter of 2025.

“Delivering double-digit volume growth across every single asset class drove double-digit gains in both revenue and earnings, resulting in the second highest revenue, adjusted net income, and earnings per share of any quarter in our history,” added Fitzpatrick. “Through the first three quarters of this year, our revenues have grown by 9% and our adjusted earnings per share by 11%.”