Over the past week, trading providers and exchanges have been increasingly publishing their third-quarter financial results for 2019. This Wednesday, CME Group, an operator of derivatives, options and futures exchanges, has done so as well, revealing an uptick in revenues.
In particular, total revenues for the firm came in at $1.3 billion for the quarter ended September 30, 2019. This represents a growth of 43.8 percent against the $904.2 million total revenues record in Q3 of 2018.
Contributing to total revenues, is clearing and transaction fees. In Q3 of 2019, CME Group reported a value of $1.04 billion. Against the same period of the previous year, it has grown by 38.3 percent.
Operating income during the third quarter of 2019 also experienced a year-on-year uptick. Specifically, it increased by 19.7 percent, rising from $549.9 million in Q3 of 2018 to $685.2 million in the most recent quarter.
FX trading falls in Q3 on CME
In terms of trading, CME Group posted a total quarterly average daily volume (ADV) of 20.2 million contracts, which is higher by 30 percent year-on-year. The ADV transacted outside of the United States also grew by 40 percent, reaching 5.3 million.
This includes a 34 percent uptick in trading in Europe, 61 percent growth in Asia and an increase in the Latin America ADV of 87 percent year-on-year.
Breaking down the total quarter ADV, the asset with the highest ADV for the third quarter were interest rates, with 10.87 million contracts traded. Against Q3 of 2018, this is higher by 39.4 percent, but it is lower than the ADV of the previous quarter by 6.3 percent.
Foreign exchange (Forex ) trading, however, was down on both a yearly and quarterly comparison. In the third quarter of 2019, the ADV was 850,000 contracts, which is lower by 2.7 percent and around 10 percent, year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter, respectively.
