CME Group

CME enjoys high profitability, but it has only moderate pricing power. Fees per contract are subject to competition and commissions agreements, so CME cannot unilaterally raise prices without risking volume to ICE or other venues.

In practice, CME’s average fee per contract has been essentially unchanged (about $0.692) year-over-year, meaning growth to date has come from volume, not price hikes.

On the other hand, CME has very little fixed contract pricing, so it’s conceivable it could increase fees more in the future, though in practice it maintains a volume-driven incentive structure.

Overall margins are very high (~60% op margin in 2023-2024), but since little margin expansion has been demonstrated via pricing, we rate pricing power as only moderate.