CME Group Posts Record Volumes For February, Shares Gain

Shares of CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) gained 1.3% in the last trading session after the company reported a record average daily volume (ADV) for February. ADV of record of 27.3 million contracts per day expanded 48% year over year. The company witnessed an increase in ADV across all the six product lines.

Options volume improved 29% year over year to average 6.1 million contracts per day with electronic options having soared 76% year over year and averaged at 3.8 million contracts per day.

Metals volume of 0.7 million contracts per day expanded 32% whereas Energy volume of 2.8 million contracts climbed 13%. Interest rate volume of 15.8 million contracts per day surged 50% while Foreign exchange volume improved 42% to about 1.1 million. Moreover, Agricultural volume of about 2 million contracts per day increased 29% year over year and Equity index volume of 4.9 million also skyrocketed 93%.

CME Group’s improving volumes are driven by a solid operating leverage, helping it maintain an enormous market share. The company holds about 90% market share of the global futures trading and clearing services. Expansion of futures products in the emerging markets plus an increase in non-transaction related opportunities and OTC offerings should continue to modestly improve the top line in the years ahead. Efforts to expand and cross-sell through strategic alliances, acquisitions, new product initiatives as well as global presence should also drive the stock.

Shares of CME Group have outperformed the industry in a year. While the stock has surged 42.5%, the industry has registered a 32.4% rise.

CME Group carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Recently, securities exchanges namely MarketAxess Holdings Ltd. (NASDAQ:MKTX) , Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE) and Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (NASDAQ:CBOE) have reported respective February volumes.

While Cboe Global Markets’ ADV of 10.6 million contracts for the month soared nearly 44.5% year over year, Intercontinental Exchange’s average daily volume improved 15.8% year over year to 6.7 million contracts. Finally, MarketAxess has reported a trading volume of $157.8 billion during the period.

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