CME Group has released its full-year financial report for 2017. The report showed that total revenues for Q4 reached $900 million, a slight bump from Q3 results of $891 million, lifting total revenues for the full year to $3.6 billion. Meanwhile, operating income for the fourth quarter came in at $537 million, bringing the total level to $2.3 billion for the full year.
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Net income for Q4 benefited from the recently imposed Tax Cut and Jobs Act in the US, boosting the data with a $2.6 billion tax benefit. As a result, Q4 net income was officially released at $2.9 billion, with diluted earnings per share reaching $8.63. On an adjusted basis, Q4 net income and diluted earnings per share posted results of $383 million and $1.12, respectively.
CME Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Terry Duffy issued a statement pertaining to the financial report: “We kept expenses relatively flat for the third straight year, and paid out more than $2 billion in dividends to our shareholders in 2017. Looking ahead, 2018 is starting out strong, with average daily volume up more than 15 percent to date, driven by broad-based strength across our asset classes.”
The full year net income came in at $4.3 billion, while diluted earnings per share had a strong result of $11.94. Relative to 2016, adjusted net income increased by 6% and reached $1.6 billion. Similarly, on an adjusted basis, diluted earnings per share posted a 5% improvement YoY reaching $4.77.
Volume Slightly Drops
The YoY average daily volume showed a slight decrease of 2% to 15.9 million contracts. The average rate per contract in the Q4 2017 was $0.736, down 1.7% from Q3 levels of $0.749. According to the CME statement, the minor drop can be attributed to a “lower proportion of commodity volume as well as higher member trading.”
Mr. Daffy added: “In a year of historically low Volatility , we set annual volume records in three of our six asset classes as well as in total options.”
