CME Group Inc.

Good day and welcome to the CME Group third quarter 2020 earnings call. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to John Pescher. Sir, please go ahead.

Good morning and thank you all for joining us today. I'm going to start with the safe harbor language and I'll turn it over to Terry and John for brief remarks followed by your questions. Other members of our management team will also participate in the Q&A. Statements made in this call and in other reference documents on our website that are not historical facts or forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or implied in any statements. More detailed information about factors that may affect our performance can be found in our filings with the FCC, which are on our website. Also, on the last page of the earnings release, you will find a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP measures. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Terry.

Thank you, John, and thank you all for joining us today. I wish you all the best, you and your families, during this challenging situation for many around the world. My comments today will be brief, as John said, so we can spend the majority of our time directly addressing your questions. We released our executive commentary this morning, which provided extensive details on the third quarter. Also, as John referenced, I have John, Sean, Derek, and Julie Winkler, who are with me this morning, and we all look forward to answering your questions. We continue to see historically low levels of volatility in several of our asset classes, which began in the second quarter. During the third quarter, we averaged 15.6 million contracts per day, down from 17.6 million contracts per day in the second quarter. We're fortunate to have a broad product portfolio. During the third quarter, we saw strength in our equity business. Our higher rate for contract metals and agricultural products delivered volume growth in Q3, and FX volume recovered an average of 100,000 contracts per day, higher in Q3 than Q2. Our market data business during the quarter had exceptional results with revenue of 139 million, the highest quarter in our history. We continue to launch innovative new products, and we have prepared for the cutover of broker tech onto Globex later this quarter. We remain committed to achieving capital and operational efficiencies for our clients. Clearly, the lack of volatility is impacting two of our largest asset classes, rates and energy. That is the current reality, but not a permanent one. We have intensified our efforts on the expense side, which is something we can control. As John will discuss in a moment, we are reducing our 2020 expense guidance by $70 million from the initial guidance we provided in February. Realizing we are in a tough environment, we also plan to deliver very strong expense management going into 2021. With that short intro, let me turn the call over to John to talk a little bit about the financial results.