The story
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), was founded in 1898 as a nonprofit corporation. In 1919, it established its clearing house. In 1982, CME introduced the first successful stock index futures contract, helping change equity risk management and creating today's equity index derivatives market. In 2000, CME demutualized and became a joint stock company. In 2002, CME Holdings Company, the parent company of CME, became a public company via an initial public offering.
In June 2007, the company, in partnership with Dubai Holding and Oman Investment Authority, launched the Dubai Mercantile Exchange, of which it owns 33%.
In July 2007, CME merged with the holding company for the Chicago Board of Trade, founded in 1848, in an $8 billion transaction that created the world's largest financial market, and became CME Group Inc., a CME/Chicago Board of Trade Company.
In August 2008, CME Group acquired New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), owner of both the NYMEX exchange and the Commodity Exchange (COMEX), for $8.9 billion in cash and CME Group stock.
In February 2010, CME Group agreed to purchase 90% of Dow Jones & Company's financial-indexes business, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average. CME Group and Dow Jones & Company subsequently contributed the Dow Jones Indexes to the formation of S&P Dow Jones Indices, with CME Group receiving a 24.4% ownership interest and Dow Jones & Company receiving a 2.6% ownership interest in the joint venture. In April 2013, CME Group purchased the Dow Jones & Company interest for $80 million, increasing CME Group's interest in S&P Dow Jones Indices from 24.4% to 27.0%.
In May 2010, the 2010 flash crash was caused when Navinder Singh Sarao, a British financial trader, used spoofing algorithms to place orders for thousands of E-Mini S&P futures contracts via CME's Globex platform. He later replaced or modified those orders at least 19,000 times before they were cancelled. The event led to the implementation of coordinated cross-market trading curbs; CME's Globex platform had automatically halted trading, while the New York Stock Exchange did not.
In March 2012, Phupinder Gill, was promoted from president and chief operating officer to CEO of the company.
In July 2012, the company sold Credit Market Analysis Limited to S&P Global.
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In December 2012, CME Group acquired the Kansas City Board of Trade, the dominant venue for the sale of hard red winter wheat, for $126 million in cash.
In October 2014, the company announced 150 layoffs.
In February 2015, the company announced it will close most open outcry trading pits since they were replaced by electronic trading platforms.
In March 2016, the firm announced the sale of its suburban Chicago data center in Aurora, Illinois to CyrusOne for $130 million, in a leaseback transaction.
In November 2016, Gill retired as CEO and Terrence A. Duffy, then executive chairman and president of the company, took on an expanded role as its CEO.
In November 2018, CME Group acquired London-based NEX Group for $5.5 billion.
In September 2021, the company, in partnership with IHS Market (later S&P Global), formed OSTTRA, a provider of post-trade solutions for the global OTC market. In October 2025, OSTTRA was sold to investment funds managed by KKR & Co. for $3.1 billion.
In November 2021, CME agreed to move its trading systems to Google Cloud under a 10-year partnership; Google invested $1 billion for 4,584,020 shares ($217/share) of CME.
In July 2023, the company announced approximately 100 layoffs.
In May 2024, the company launched trading in spot Bitcoin. It has offered trading in Bitcoin futures contracts since 2017.
In December 2025, the company formed a joint venture with FanDuel, of which CME owns 51%, to launch a prediction markets mobile app that offers retail customers event contracts based on major financial and economic benchmarks as well as on sports. CME handles the clearing aspects while FanDuel handles the technology aspects.
In February 2026, the company announced plans to launch future contracts for trading in rare-earth elements. In May 2026, the company announced plans to launch futures contracts for trading in uranium.
Effective March 2027, Terrence A. Duffy will resign as CEO and will be replaced by CFO Lynne Fitzpatrick.
From Wikipedia’s article on CME Group, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7