CME Group (CME) Risk Factor Changes

Under the terms of the organizational documents of our exchanges, our exchange members have certain rights that relate primarily to trading right protections, certain trading fee protections and certain membership ben…

It is not always possible to deter misconduct, and the precautions we take to prevent and detect this activity, including our internal controls, may not be effective in all cases.

extent we enter into joint ventures and alliances, we may experience difficulties in the development and expansion of the business of any newly formed ventures, in the exercise of influence over the activities of any…

Our clearing house operations expose us to counterparties with differing risk profiles.

We depend on a number of suppliers, such as banking, clearing and settlement organizations, telephone companies, internet service providers, data processors, cloud hosting providers, data center providers, and softwar…

Regulations relating to our trading and clearing systems generally require the handling of anticipated present and future peak trading volume.

From time to time, we have experienced system errors and failures that have resulted in some customers being unable to connect to our electronic trading platforms and technology offerings, or that resulted in erroneou…

We cannot assure that we will not experience system failures from power or telecommunications failures, acts of God, war or terrorism, human error on our part or on the part of our third-party service providers or par…

Additionally, we rely on our customers' ability to have the necessary back office functionality to support our new products and our trading and clearing functionality, including generating sufficient liquidity.

The success of our business depends in large part on our ability to create interactive electronic marketplaces for a wide range of products that have the required functionality, performance, availability, resilience,…

Many aspects of our business present substantial litigation risks.

We have designed our cyber defense program to mitigate such attacks and security risks through administrative, physical and technical safeguards.

Some of our clearing house's largest clearing firms have indicated their belief that clearing facilities should not be owned or controlled by exchanges and should be operated as utilities and not for profit.

BrokerTec Americas' matched principal platform facilitates anonymous trading in significant volumes from wholesale market participants, many of which are FICC members and understand that BrokerTec Americas is also a F…

If we fail to comply with applicable laws, rules or regulations, we may be subject to censure, fines, cease-and-desist orders, suspension of our business, removal of personnel or other sanctions, including revocation…

We are primarily subject to the jurisdiction of the regulatory agencies in the U.S., UK and EU.

•economic, political and geopolitical market conditions, including the instability caused by trade policies and wars;

In addition to the other information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, you should carefully consider the factors discussed below, which are the risks we believe are material at this time.

certain actions that we may deem to be in the best interests of the company and its shareholders, including actions relating to certain pricing decisions, may be limited by the rights of our members.

trading activities in our markets could affect our brand and reputation and reduce the number of participants trading in our markets.

A substantial part of our working capital may be at risk if a clearing firm defaults on its obligations to our clearing house and its margin and guaranty fund deposits are insufficient to meet its obligations.

System failure or degradation could lead our customers to file formal complaints with industry regulatory organizations, to file lawsuits against us or to cease doing business with us or could lead our regulators to i…

If we do not continue to enhance our electronic trading systems and technology offerings, including the development and migration of our markets and supporting operational and business functions to the CME Google Clou…

costs, which in turn may cause our revenues and earnings to decline and could have a material impact on our financial condition or results of operations.

•better leverage existing relationships with customers and alliance partners or exploit better recognized brand names to market and sell their services; or

those obligations.

Our financial performance depends, in part, on our ability to develop and market new and innovative services that differentiate our products or provide cost efficiencies, while avoiding increased related expenses.

Our use of artificial intelligence in our business may be unsuccessful and may give rise to various risks, which could adversely affect our business, reputation or operating results.

available, whether we would be able to obtain such licenses on commercially reasonable terms.

To the extent we acquire a new business, the process of integration also may produce unforeseen regulatory and operating difficulties and expenditures and may divert the attention of management from the ongoing operat…

In addition, we have established a fund (currently $98.0 million) to provide payments, up to certain maximum levels, to qualified family farmers, ranchers and other agricultural industry participants who use our deriv…

Our policies and procedures which are designed to ensure that our clearing firms and other counterparties can satisfy their obligations, including collecting margin and guaranty fund contributions from clearing firms,…

management from the operation of our derivatives clearing house, the operation of a securities clearing house is new to our business.

A substantial part of our working capital may be at risk if a clearing firm defaults on its obligations to our clearing house and its margin and guaranty fund deposits are insufficient to meet its obligations.

Because our cost structure is largely fixed, if demand for our current products and services declines for any reason, we may not be able to adjust our cost structure to counteract the associated decline in revenues, w…

Trading volume in our markets and products is largely driven by the degree of volatility - the magnitude and frequency of fluctuations - in prices and levels of the underlying commodities, securities, indices, financi…

Our business is subject to the impact of financial markets volatility, which is caused by conditions that are beyond our control.

performance, availability, resilience, capacity, security, and speed demanded by our customers, our ability to successfully compete, along with our revenues and profits, will be adversely affected.

Failure to continuously improve our electronic trading systems and technology offerings could materially impact our financial condition or results of operations.

result of failures or malfunctions of our systems and services we provide.

•market and sell their services more effectively because of their existing customer and alliance partner relationships, as well as their recognized brand names; or

for positions established on our exchanges or to freely move open positions among clearing houses in order to take advantage of our liquidity.

The legal status of certain event-based contracts, most notably those based on sports events, is the subject of litigation in various jurisdictions.

Legislation regarding the regulatory market structure applicable to the trading and clearing of spot digital assets is currently being considered in Congress.