CME Group Inc.

Welcome to the CME Group first quarter 2024 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. During the Q&A session, if you'd like to ask a question, you may press star 1 on your phone. I'll now turn the conference over to Adam Minnick. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and I hope you're all doing well today. We released our executive commentary earlier this morning, which provides extensive details on the first quarter 2024, which we will be discussing on this call. I'll start with the Safe Harbor language and then I'll turn it over to Terry. Statements made on this call and in the other reference documents on our website that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance. They involve risks, uncertainties, and problems that are difficult to fix. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or implied in any statement. Detailed information about factors that may affect our performance can be found in the filings with the SEC, which are on our website. Lastly, on the final page of the earnings release, we'll see a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP measures. With that, I'll turn the call over.

Thanks, Adam, and thank you all for joining us this morning. I'm going to make a few brief comments about the quarter and the overall environment. Following that, Lynn will provide an overview of our first quarter financial results. In addition to Lynn, we have other members of our management team present to answer questions after the prepared remarks. Our performance in the first quarter was strong evidence of the ever-growing need for risk management globally. First quarter average daily volume of 26.4 million contracts was the third highest quarterly ADV in CME Group's history. The only higher quarters were the first quarter of 2020 at the onset of the pandemic in the first quarter last year, which was impacted by the significant bank turmoil in March and created the much tougher comparison for March of 2024. Despite no specific macro event or change in Federal Reserve rates occurring in Q1, we had the highest January ADV to date, up 16% year-over-year, and a February that included the highest monthly interest rate ADV in our history of 17.2 million contracts, or up 6%. We achieved quarterly ADV records for both treasuries of 7.8 million contracts and the overall options of 5.9 million contracts. Both equity index and energy options reached all-time high levels. Our non-US ADV also reached a record level of 7.4 million contracts. This is driven largely by 38% growth in energy, 29% in ag products and 7% in metals. In total, we delivered 14% ADV growth across our physical commodity products to 4.7 million average daily volume, which included 16% year-over-year growth for both energy and ag products. This strong first quarter activity across our business lines helps generate record-adjusted quarterly financial results which Lynn will detail in just a moment. Activity so far in April has continued to build on many of these trends following the strong first quarter of our physical commodity asset classes. They are up 26% to date in April, as of April 22nd. Metals ADV specifically is up 76%, and the complex reached its highest daily volume in history at 1.7 million contracts on April 12th. On the financial side of the business, the CPI released on April 10th was a great example of how important every data point is for the market to adjust positions to manage risk. We reached nearly 44 million contracts traded that day, and the wide range of views around the health of the global economy and the nuance related to interpreting the many different economic indicators continues as a result of a strong market dynamics Year-to-date through April 22nd, our ADV is up 4%, including year-over-year growth, in all six of our asset classes. CME Group continues to provide deep, liquid markets across global benchmarks to deliver the most operational and capital efficiencies to market participants. CME Group's multi-asset class offering is in higher demand today than ever. I'm now going to turn the call over to Lynn to review our financial results.