Who Owns CME Group?

The lineage is Chicago commodity trading itself. The Chicago Butter and Egg Board opened in 1898 and became the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 1919, initially trading butter and eggs before expanding into livestock, then financial futures. The rival Chicago Board of Trade, founded in 1848, ran its own markets for grain and financial futures for over a century.

The modern company is a product of consolidation. The CME demutualized in 2000 and became the first US exchange to go public in December 2002. In 2007 it merged with its historic rival CBOT to form CME Group, combining the two dominant Chicago markets. It acquired the New York Mercantile Exchange in 2008, adding energy and metals under NYMEX and COMEX, and the Kansas City Board of Trade in 2012. The 2018 purchase of NEX Group brought BrokerTec and EBS, expanding it into cash Treasury and FX markets.

Each deal extended its product range. Today it lists futures and options across six asset classes: interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities, and metals, plus a growing cryptocurrency franchise. Flagship contracts include E-mini S&P 500 futures, US Treasury futures, West Texas Intermediate crude oil, corn, and gold.

Recent years produced records. 2025 marked a fourth consecutive year of record revenue, adjusted net income, and adjusted EPS, with ADV of 28.1 million contracts and market data revenue of $803 million. The expansion continues: 24/7 cryptocurrency trading, prediction markets through new event contracts, and a cloud migration with Google Cloud that makes it the only exchange offering both co-location and cloud-managed services. Q3 2026 set a record for that quarter with $1.7 billion in revenue and 29.4 million contract ADV.