CME Group Inc.

Welcome to the CME Group fourth quarter 2024 earnings call. At this time, I would like to inform all participants that your lines have been placed on a listen-only mode until the question and answer session of today's conference. I would now like to turn the call over to Adam Minnick. Sir, 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 fourth 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 assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual results and outcomes 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, in the earnings release, you will see a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP measures following the financial statements. With that, I'll turn the call over to Terry.

Thanks, Adam, and thank you all for joining us this morning. I'm going to make a few brief comments about our record year in 2024. and some thoughts on the current business environment. Following that, Lynn will provide an overview of our financial results and our 2025 guidance. In addition to Lynn, we have other members of our management team present to answer questions after the prepared remarks. 2024 was the best year in CME Group's history and our fourth consecutive year of record volume, with average daily volume increasing 9% to 26.9 million contracts. This growth was broad-based with volume increasing year-over-year in all six asset classes, including all-time volume records in our interest rate, foreign exchange, metals, and agricultural complexes. It was also a record year for our international business, which averaged 7.8 million contracts per day, or up 14 percent from the previous record set in 2023. In addition to our impressive volume results, we continue to provide unmatched capital efficiencies for our customers. We have previously discussed that within our interest rates alone, the breadth of our offering results in margin savings in excess of $20 billion per day for our clients. It is worth noting that this margin savings applies across all the asset classes we clear. As you may have seen in the commentary we released this morning, our customers are now saving approximately $60 billion per day across all six asset classes. Commodities were the third fastest growing asset class in 2024, with metals volume up 23%, energy up 17%, and ags up 13%. These businesses combined to generate a record $1.7 billion in revenue in 2024, up 16% versus 2023, and are off to another great start in 2025. Commodity's growth came from every customer segment, led by the buy side, where we've seen significant increases in activity by global multi-strategy hedge funds as they expand into commodity-focused strategies. Geographically, the fastest growing growth came from EMEA, where our year-over-year volume was up 34% across the commodities business. Commodity options also demonstrated strong growth with volumes up 29% versus 2023. Our growth has been driven by strong new client acquisition across both institutional and retail sectors. I've said many times in recent years that it's going to become more and more difficult to distinguish between retail and institutional trading behaviors. Technology is equalizing the access to data and improving the flow of information. This is bringing a new type of trader into our markets and will continue to grow the overall financial system. Over the last year, several large retail broker partners have joined our markets to meet this customer demand. As discussed throughout this year, we have increased our allocation of expenses to marketing and education of potential new clients. Given the strong financial results, we further increased this investment during Q4. In total, new clients added in the last five years have generated approximately $1 billion of revenue, including approximately 5% of transaction and clearing revenue in 2024. Moving into 2025, we continue to see strong volumes to start the year with new volume records in January and ongoing customer needs for efficient trading and hedging solutions. Shifting views around the global economy, persistent inflation, potential for changes in tariffs, and ongoing geopolitical tensions all contribute to potential market movement and the need for effective risk management, which we will continue to provide to our clients. In addition to the impressive volume results I've outlined, we've delivered record financial results. With that, I'll turn the call over to Lynn to review these results in more detail.