Chicago Board of Trade owner says 4Q profit rose 16 percent
NEW YORK — CME Group, the parent company of the Chicago Board of Trade and other exchanges, said Tuesday that its fourth-quarter net income rose 16 percent, as trading volumes in futures contracts increased.
Net income rose to $193.1 million, or 58 cents per share, for the three months that ended on Dec. 2013, from $166.8 million, or 50 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier. Revenue rose 4 percent, to $687 million from $660.9 million, but was short of Wall Street’s prediction of $693.5 million.
Excluding one-time items, such as a loss on the sale of the building housing the New York Mercantile Exchange, earnings were 64 cents per share, 3 cents below the average estimate of analysts polled by FactSet.
The volume of contracts traded on the exchange climbed 11 percent to 11.3 million. Interest-rate products surged as the Federal Reserve began taking steps toward reducing its economic stimulus.
For all of 2013, CME’s net income climbed 9 percent to $976.8 million, or $2.92 per share.
And the Chicago-based company said the new year has started well. Increased volatility in financial markets lifted the average daily volume of contracts by 13 percent in January, CME Group’s CEO Phupinder Gill said in prepared remarks.
CME’s shares fell 32 cents to $72.86 in morning trading. The stock is up 25 percent in the past 12 months.