ITEM 1A.    RISK FACTORS

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. These risks could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. These risks and uncertainties are not the only ones facing us. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently believe to be immaterial may also adversely affect our business.

RISKS RELATING TO OUR INDUSTRY

Our business is subject to the impact of domestic and international market, economic and political conditions that are beyond our control and that could significantly impact our business and make our financial results more volatile.

Our revenue is substantially derived from fees for transactions executed and cleared in our markets. The trading volumes in our markets are directly affected by domestic and international factors that are beyond our control, including:

Any one or more of these factors may contribute to reduced activity in our markets. Historically, periods of heightened uncertainty have tended to increase our trading volume due to increased hedging activity and the increased need to manage the risks associated with, or speculate on, volatility in the U.S. equity markets, fluctuations in interest rates and price changes in the foreign exchange, commodity and other markets. However, as evidenced by our past performance, in the period after a material market disturbance, there may persist extreme uncertainties, which may lead to decreased volume due to factors such as reduced risk exposure, lower interest rates, central bank asset purchase programs and lack of available capital. The shifts in market trading patterns we experienced as a result of the financial crisis of 2008 may or may not recur in the future, and our business will be affected by future economic uncertainties, which may result in decreased trading volume and a more difficult business environment for us. A reduction in overall trading volume or in certain products could render our markets less attractive to market participants as a source of liquidity, which could result in further loss of trading volume and associated transaction-based revenue. Material decreases in trading volume would have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and operating results.

We operate in a heavily regulated environment that imposes significant costs and competitive burdens on our business.

We are primarily subject to the jurisdiction of the regulatory agencies in the United States and Europe. As a result of our global operations, we are also subject to the rules and regulations of the local jurisdictions in which we conduct business and offer our products and services.

Due to the global financial crisis that began in 2008, the United States and numerous other governments have undertaken reviews of the legal framework governing financial markets and have either passed new laws and regulations, or are in the process of debating or enacting new laws and regulations that will impact our business. We have incurred and expect to continue to incur significant additional costs to comply with the extensive regulations that apply to our business. Additionally, regulation imposed on financial institutions or market participants generally, such as enhanced capital requirements, may adversely impact their trading activity in our markets. Also, as noted above, EMIR 2.2, the legislation being considered by the European Commission, European Council, and European Parliament, and the implementation of the regulations under this legislation, have the potential to increase our regulatory costs and/or create a disincentive for certain clients to use our products. The EU equivalence and recognition regime also has the potential to impact the cost and ease or difficulty for certain of NEX’s OTC execution platforms to provide access to customers on a global basis.

To the extent the regulatory environment is less beneficial for us or our customers, our business, financial condition and operating results could be negatively affected.

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 of our designations as a contract market, derivatives clearing organization, swap execution facility or broker-dealer.

Legislation may be proposed, both domestically and internationally, that could add a transaction tax on our products or change the way that our market participants are taxed on the products they trade on our markets. If such proposals were to become law, they could have a negative impact on our industry and on us by making transactions more costly to market participants, which may reduce trading and could make our markets less competitive.

Please see "Item 1 – Business – Regulatory Matters" beginning on page 10 for additional information on our areas of regulatory focus.

We face intense competition from other companies. If we are not able to successfully compete, our business, financial condition and operating results will be materially harmed.

The industry in which we operate is highly competitive and we expect competition to continue to intensify, especially in light of the implementation of Dodd-Frank and other reforms of the financial services industry. We believe portions of Dodd-Frank and the corresponding regulations with respect to mandatory clearing and organized trading provide opportunities for our business. However, other reforms could negatively impact our business and our ability to compete effectively. We encounter competition in all aspects of our business, including from entities having substantially greater capital and resources, offering a wide range of products and services and in some cases operating under a different and possibly less stringent regulatory regime. We face competition from other futures, securities and securities option exchanges; OTC markets; clearing organizations; consortia formed by our members and large industry participants; swap execution facilities; alternative trade execution facilities; technology firms, including market data distributors and electronic trading system developers, and others. Many of our competitors and potential competitors have greater financial, marketing, technological and personnel resources than we do.

Our competitors may:

If our products, markets and services are not competitive, our business, financial condition and operating results will be materially harmed. A decline in our fees or loss of customers could lower our revenues, which would adversely affect our profitability.

Please see "Item 1 – Business – Competition" beginning on page 9 for additional information on the competitive environment and its potential impact on our business.

Our trading volume, and consequently our revenues and profits, would be adversely affected if we are unable to retain our current customers or attract new customers.

The success of our business depends, in part, on our ability to maintain and increase our trading volume in our markets. To do so, we must maintain and expand our product offerings, our customer base and our trade execution and clearing facilities. Our success also depends on our ability to offer competitive prices and services in an increasingly price-sensitive business. For example, some of our competitors have engaged in aggressive pricing strategies in the past, such as lowering the fees that they charge for taking liquidity and increasing liquidity payments or rebates. We cannot provide assurances that we will be able to continue to expand our products and services, that we will be able to retain our current customers or attract new customers or that we will not be required to modify our pricing structure to compete effectively. Changes in our pricing structure may result in a decrease in our profit margin. Additionally, from time to time, certain customers may represent a significant portion of the open interest in our individual product lines or contracts. If we fail to maintain our trading volume; expand our product offerings or execution facilities; or lose a substantial number of our current customers, or a subset of customers representing a significant percentage of trading volume in a particular product line; or are unable to attract new customers, our business and revenues will be adversely affected. Furthermore, declines in trading volume due to loss of customers may negatively impact market liquidity, which could lead to further loss of trading volume.

Our role in the global marketplace places us at greater risk than other public companies for a cyber attack and other cyber security risks. Our technology, our people and those of our third-party service providers may be vulnerable to cyber security threats, which could result in wrongful use of our information or cause interruptions in our operations that cause us to lose customers and trading volume, and result in substantial liabilities. We also could be required to incur significant expense to protect our systems and/or investigate any alleged attack.

We regard the secure transmission of confidential information and the ability to continuously transact and clear on our electronic trading platforms as critical elements of our operations. Our technology, our people and those of our third-party service providers and our customers may be vulnerable to targeted attacks, unauthorized access, fraud, computer viruses, denial of service attacks, terrorism, "ransom" attacks, firewall or encryption failures and other security problems. Criminal groups, political activist groups and nation-state actors have targeted the financial services industry and our role in the global marketplace places us at greater risk than other public companies for a cyber attack and other information security threats. While the company has not experienced cyber incidents that are individually, or in the aggregate, material, the company has experienced cyber attacks of varying degrees in the past. The company has designed its cyber defense program to mitigate such attacks by preventative, detective, and responsive measures. Our usage of mobile and cloud technologies may increase our risk for a cyber attack. Our security measures may also be breached due to employee error, malfeasance, system errors or vulnerabilities. Additionally, outside parties may attempt to fraudulently induce employees, users, or customers to disclose sensitive information in order to gain access to our technology systems and data, or our customers’ data. Any such breach or unauthorized access could result in significant legal and financial exposure, damage to our reputation, and a loss of confidence in the services we provide that could potentially have an adverse effect on our business, while resulting in regulatory penalties or the imposition of burdensome obligations by regulators. In addition, as the regulatory environment related to information security, data collection and use, and privacy becomes increasingly rigorous, with new and constantly changing requirements applicable to our business, including the European Union General Data Protection Regulation that went into effect in May

2018, compliance with those requirements could also result in additional costs and may carry significant penalties for non-compliance.

Additionally, the operation of our technology platforms may place us at greater risk for misappropriation of our intellectual property, and persons who circumvent security measures could wrongfully use or steal our information or cause interruptions or malfunctions in our operations. In the past, we have been the victim of trade secret theft by an employee.

As part of our global information security program, we employ resources to monitor and protect our technology infrastructure and employees against such cyber attacks, including the rapid response to zero-day vulnerabilities, and the potential misappropriation of our intellectual property assets. However, our security measures or those of our third-party providers, including any cloud-based technologies, may prove insufficient depending upon the attack or threat posed. Any security attack or breach could result in system failures and delays, loss of customers and lower trading volume, loss of competitive position, damage to our reputation, disruption of our business, legal liability or regulatory fines, significant costs, which in turn, may cause our revenues and earnings to decline. Though we have insurance against some cyber risks and attacks, we may be subject to litigation and financial losses that exceed our policy limits or are not covered under any of our current insurance policies.

As a financial services provider, we are subject to significant litigation risk and potential commodity and securities law liability.

Many aspects of our business involve substantial litigation risks. While our derivatives exchange and clearing activities generally are protected by our rules limiting liability for system failures and certain forms of negligence and by statutory limits on the ability to bring private causes of actions in cases where we have not acted in bad faith, we could be exposed to substantial liability under federal and state laws and court decisions, as well as rules and regulations promulgated and/or direct actions brought by the SEC and the CFTC. These risks include, among others, potential liability from disputes over terms of a trade, the claim that a system failure or delay caused monetary losses to a customer, that we entered into an unauthorized transaction, that we provided materially false or misleading statements in connection with a transaction or that we failed to effectively fulfill our regulatory oversight responsibilities. We may be subject to disputes regarding the quality of trade execution, the settlement of trades or other matters relating to our services. We may become subject to these claims as a result of failures or malfunctions of our systems and services we provide. We could incur significant legal expenses defending claims, even those without merit. In addition, an adverse resolution of any future lawsuit or claim against us could have a material adverse effect on our business and our reputation. To the extent we are found to have failed to fulfill our regulatory obligations, we could lose our authorizations or licenses or become subject to conditions that could make future operations more costly and impair our profitability.

Some of CME Clearing'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. These clearing firms have sought, and may seek in the future, legislative or regulatory changes that would, if adopted, enable them to use alternative clearing services for positions established on our exchanges or to freely move open positions among clearing houses in order to take advantage of our liquidity. Even if they are not successful, these factors may cause them to limit the use of our markets.

Our clearing house seeks to offer customers, intermediaries and clearing firms universal access in order to maximize the efficient use of capital, exercise appropriate oversight of value at risk and maintain operating leverage from clearing activities on our exchanges. Our strategic business plan is to operate an efficient and transparent vertically integrated transaction execution, clearing and settlement business for our futures and options on futures business. Some of our clearing firms have expressed the view that clearing firms should control the governance of clearing houses or that clearing houses should be operated as utilities rather than as part of for-profit enterprises. Some of these firms, along with certain industry associations, have sought, and may seek in the future, legislative or regulatory changes to be adopted that would facilitate mechanisms or policies that allow market participants to transfer positions of futures or options on futures from an exchange-owned clearing house to a clearing house owned and controlled by clearing firms. If these legislative or regulatory changes are adopted, our revenues and profits could be adversely affected.

We may be at greater risk from terrorism than other companies.

We may be more likely than other companies to be a direct target of, or an indirect casualty of, attacks by terrorists or terrorist organizations. It is impossible to accurately predict the likelihood or impact of any terrorist attack on our industry generally or on our business. While we have implemented significant physical security protection measures , business continuity plans and established backup sites, in the event of an attack or a threat of an attack, these security measures and contingency plans may be inadequate to prevent significant disruptions in our business, technology or access to the infrastructure necessary to maintain our business. Such attack may result in the closure of our facilities or render our backup data and recovery systems inoperable. Damage to our facilities due to terrorist attacks may be significantly in excess of any amount of insurance received, or we may not be able to insure against such damage at a reasonable price or at all. The threat of terrorist attacks may also negatively

affect our ability to attract and retain employees. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

RISKS RELATING TO OUR BUSINESS

Damage to our reputation could damage our business.

Maintaining our reputation and brand is critical to attracting and retaining customers and investors and for maintaining our relationships with our regulators. Negative publicity regarding our company or actual, alleged or perceived issues regarding our products or services could give rise to reputational risk which could significantly harm our business prospects. These issues may include, but are not limited to, any of the risks discussed in this Item 1A, including risks from customer disputes, system failures or intrusions, failures to meet our regulatory obligations, failures of a clearing firm or other counterparty, issues relating to our third-party suppliers, misconduct and ineffective risk management.  

The success of our markets depends on our ability to complete development of, successfully implement and maintain the electronic trading systems that have the functionality, performance, reliability and speed required by our customers.

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, capacity, security and speed to attract and retain customers. In 2018, 90% of our overall volume was generated through electronic trading on our CME Globex electronic platform. In connection with the acquisition of NEX, we acquired the BrokerTec and EBS trading platforms, which will eventually be migrated to CME Globex.

We must continue to enhance our electronic trading platforms and other technology offerings to remain competitive. As a result, we will continue to be subject to risks, expenses and uncertainties encountered in the rapidly evolving market for electronic transaction services. These risks include our failure or inability to:  

If we do not successfully enhance our electronic trading systems and technology offerings, if we are unable to develop them to include other products and markets or if they do not have the required functionality, performance, capacity, security and speed desired by our customers, our ability to successfully compete and our revenues and profits will be adversely affected.

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. To the extent our customers are not prepared and/or lack the resources or infrastructure, the success of our new initiatives may be compromised.

If we experience systems failures or capacity constraints, our ability to conduct our operations and execute our business strategy could be materially harmed and we could be subjected to significant costs and liabilities.

Our business is highly dependent on our ability to process and monitor, on a daily basis, a large number of transactions which occur at high volume and frequencies across multiple systems. We are heavily reliant on the capacity, reliability and security of the computer and communications systems and software supporting our operations. Our systems, or those of our third-party providers, including cloud providers, may fail or be shut down or, due to capacity constraints, may operate slowly, causing one or more of the following to occur:  

We cannot assure you that we will not experience systems failures from power or telecommunications failure, acts of God, war or terrorism, human error on our part or on the part of our vendors, natural disasters, fire, sabotage, hardware or software malfunctions or defects, computer viruses, cyber attacks, acts of vandalism or similar occurrences. If any of our systems or the systems of our third-party providers do not operate properly, are compromised or are disabled, including as a result of system failure, employee or customer error or misuse of our systems, we could suffer financial loss, liability to customers, regulatory intervention or reputational damage that could affect demand by current and potential users of our market.

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 erroneous reporting, such as transactions that were not authorized by any customer or reporting of filled orders as canceled. Such errors may result in CME Group being liable or in our voluntary assumption of financial liability. We cannot assure you that if we experience system errors or failures in the future that they will not have a material adverse impact on our business. Any such system failures that cause an interruption in service or decrease our responsiveness could impair our reputation, damage our brand or have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

Regulations relating to our derivatives exchange and clearing business generally require that our trade execution and communications systems be able to handle anticipated present and future peak trading volume. Similarly, our BrokerTec and EBS trading platforms are expected by our customers to be regularly available and able to handle peak volumes. Heavy use of our computer systems during peak trading times or at times of unusual market volatility could cause our systems to operate slowly or even to fail for periods of time. We constantly monitor system loads and performance, and regularly implement system upgrades to handle estimated increases in contract volume. However, we cannot assure you that our estimates of future trading volume and order messaging traffic will be accurate or that our systems will always be able to accommodate actual trading volume and order messaging traffic without failure or degradation of performance. Increased trading volume and order messaging traffic may result in connectivity problems or erroneous reports that may affect users of our platforms. 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 the CFTC or other regulators to initiate inquiries or proceedings for failure to comply with applicable laws and regulations.

We will need to continue to upgrade, expand and increase the capacity of our systems as our business grows and as we execute our business strategy. Although many of our systems are designed to accommodate additional volume and products and services without redesign or replacement, we will need to continue to make significant investments in additional hardware and software to accommodate the increases in volume of transactions and order transaction traffic and to provide processing services to third parties. If we cannot increase the capacity and capabilities of our systems to accommodate an increasing volume of transactions and to execute our business strategy, our ability to maintain or expand our businesses would be adversely affected.

We, as well as many of our customers, depend on third-party suppliers and service providers for a number of services that are important. An interruption or cessation of an important supply or service by any third party could have a material adverse effect on our business, including revenues derived from our customers' trading activity.

We depend on a number of suppliers, such as banking, clearing and settlement organizations, telephone companies, on-line service providers, data processors, cloud hosting providers, data center providers, and software and hardware vendors, for elements of our trading, clearing and other systems, as well as communications and networking equipment, computer hardware and software and related support and maintenance.

Many of our customers rely on third parties, such as independent software vendors, to provide them with front-end systems to access our trading platforms and other back office systems for their trade processing and risk management needs. While these service providers have undertaken to keep current with our enhancements and changes to our interfaces and functionality, we cannot guarantee that they will continue to make the necessary monetary and time investments to keep up with our changes.

To the extent any of our service providers or the organizations that provide services to our customers in connection with their trading activities cease to provide these services in an efficient, cost-effective manner or fail to adequately expand their services to meet our needs and the needs of our customers, we could experience decreased trading volume, lower revenues and higher costs.

Certain businesses acquired from NEX subject us to compliance and regulatory risks associated with being a regulated intermediary.

Regulatory oversight of our business has historically been extensive and focused on the adequacy of our self-regulatory oversight of our derivatives exchange and clearing activities and the security and safeguards of our systems. The broker-dealer and multilateral trading facility businesses acquired from NEX (BrokerTec and EBS) are also extensively regulated, but with a focus on their role as intermediaries, which may create compliance and regulatory risks different than those to which we previously have been subject. These regulatory obligations generally include proper licensing and qualification of the firms and individuals, substantive conduct standards, communication and disclosure rules, monitoring and surveillance, training, capital requirements, supervisory obligations, maintenance of an anti-money laundering program, suspicious activity reporting, risk management standards, trade reporting, and ongoing examinations and reviews. The risks from failing to meet these compliance and regulatory obligations include potential liability, disciplinary action against the firm and individuals, monetary penalties, and restrictions on future activities.

Our business exposes us to substantial credit risk of our clearing firms and other counterparties and, consequently, a decrease in their financial resources could adversely affect us.

In our derivatives business, our clearing house operations expose us to counterparties with differing risk profiles. We routinely guarantee transactions submitted by our clearing firms with counterparties in the financial industry, including brokers and dealers, commercial banks, investment banks, mutual and hedge funds, and other institutional customers. We could be adversely impacted by the financial distress or failure of one or more of our clearing firms. Additionally, we are exposed to the risk of loss from the failure of a matched principal counterparty to settle its trades at BrokerTec.

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. Additionally, BrokerTec is exposed to the potential risk of loss in the event a counterparty fails to meet its obligations. Although we have policies and procedures to help ensure that our clearing firms and other counterparties can satisfy their obligations, these policies and procedures may not succeed in detecting problems or preventing defaults. We also have in place various measures intended to enable us to cure any default and maintain liquidity. However, we cannot assure you that these measures will be sufficient to protect market participants from a default or that we will not be adversely affected in the event of a significant default. 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 products and who suffer losses to their segregated account balances if their derivatives clearing firm member becomes insolvent.

Our BrokerTec matched principal business is highly dependent on our status as a member in good standing of the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC), and our failure to maintain that status could adversely affect us.

BrokerTec’s matched principal platform facilitates anonymous trading in significant volumes from wholesale market participants who are FICC members and understand that BrokerTec is also a FICC member, such that their trades are expected to be novated promptly to FICC, who will be their ultimate counterparty. A failure of BrokerTec to maintain its membership could adversely impact the willingness of such participants to continue trading on the platform. As part of maintaining its membership, BrokerTec is required to timely and fully meet all margin calls and other obligations established by FICC, and as such must maintain ready access to sufficient liquidity to satisfy those obligations. BrokerTec maintains access to liquidity resources that it believes will satisfy these obligations in normal and stressed circumstances, but there can be no guarantee that it will never experience a shortfall.

Our Three-Month Eurodollar futures contracts are based on the three-month U.S. dollar LIBOR underlying rate. To the extent trading in Eurodollar contracts decreases and our alternative contracts are not successful, our revenues would be negatively impacted. Certain of our other businesses could also be negatively affected by changes to LIBOR.

Our Eurodollar futures contracts are based on the three-month U.S. dollar ICE LIBOR (LIBOR) underlying rate. In 2018, average trading volume in our Eurodollar contracts was 4.5 million contracts and open interest was 53.9 million contracts. LIBOR is the subject of recent national and international proposals for reform which advocate for the transition of survey based interbank offered rates to alternative transaction-based reference rates. In particular, on July 27, 2017, the Chief Executive of the FCA, which regulates LIBOR, announced that it intends to stop persuading banks to submit rates for the calibration of LIBOR to the administrator of LIBOR after 2021. The announcement indicates that the continuation of LIBOR on the current basis cannot be guaranteed after 2021. While we are closely engaged with the industry, regulators, and market participants to launch products using alternative reference rates, including our SOFR and SONIA futures contracts launched in 2018, there is no guarantee that a transition to such contracts would be successful and would replace the revenue we derive from our Eurodollar contracts if the trading volume were to decline or discontinue altogether. Additionally, certain of our other businesses, including our Reset offering, could be negatively affected by changes to LIBOR.

The required capital and posted collateral of our clearing firms may lose value given the volatility of the market.

To become a clearing member at our clearing house, a firm must meet certain minimum capital requirements and must deposit collateral to meet performance bond and guaranty fund requirements. We accept a variety of collateral to satisfy these requirements, including cash, regulated money market mutual funds, U.S. Treasury securities, U.S. Government Agency securities, letters of credit, gold, equities and select ETFs, foreign sovereign debt, Canadian Provincials and corporate bonds, and subject them to established haircuts based on the type of collateral and maturity. There is no guarantee the collateral will maintain its value. To the extent a clearing firm is not compliant with capital, margin or guaranty fund requirements, it would be required to promptly come into compliance by adding capital or collateral, decreasing its proprietary trading activity and/or transferring customer accounts to another clearing firm. These actions could result in a decrease in trading activity in our derivatives products.

Intellectual property rights licensed from third-party price reporting agencies form the basis for many of our products from which we derive a significant portion of our volume and revenue. Regulatory scrutiny into such benchmarks could have a negative impact on our ability to offer such products.

We are significantly dependent on the contract volume of products which are based on intellectual property rights of indexes derived from third-party price reporting agencies. To comply with CFTC core principles, we must be able to demonstrate that our products may not be readily susceptible to manipulation. Our inability to offer products based on these indexes could have a negative impact on our contract volume and revenues.

Our market data revenues may be reduced by decreased demand, poor overall economic conditions, regulatory changes or a significant change in how market participants trade and use market data.

We sell our market data to individuals, trading institutions and other organizations that use our information services to participate in our markets and/or monitor general economic conditions. Revenues from our market data and information services represented 10% and 11% of our total revenues during the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2017 respectively. A decrease in overall trading volume may lead to a decreased demand for our market data. For example, in recent years, we experienced a decrease in the average number of market data connections due to continued economic uncertainty, high unemployment levels in the financial services sector and aggressive cost cutting initiatives at customer firms and the continued impact of legacy incentive programs tied to trading terminals. We could also become subject to regulatory actions, which could have the potential to restrict how we charge for our market data. We also license our market data to be used in the creation of derivative financial products, and changes to regulation, including the impact of any changes in laws or government policy, may impact the demand of our market data for such derivative works.

We may have difficulty executing our growth strategy and maintaining our growth effectively.

We continue to focus on strategic initiatives to grow our business, including our efforts to serve the OTC markets and to distribute our products and services on a global basis. There is no guarantee that our efforts will be successful. Continued growth will require additional investment in personnel, facilities, information technology infrastructure and financial and management systems and controls and may place a significant strain on our management and resources. For example, if we encounter limited resources, we may be required to increase our expenses to obtain the necessary resources, defer existing initiatives or not pursue certain opportunities. We may not be successful in implementing all of the processes that are necessary to support our growth organically or, as described below, through acquisitions, other investments or strategic alliances. Our growth strategy also may subject us to increased legal, compliance and regulatory obligations. Unless our growth results in an increase in our revenues that is proportionate to the increase in our costs associated with our growth, our future profitability could be adversely affected, and we may have to incur significant expenditures to address the additional operational and control requirements as a result of our growth.

We intend to continue to explore acquisitions, other investments and strategic alliances. We may not be successful in identifying opportunities or in integrating the acquired businesses. Any such transaction may not produce the results we anticipate, which could adversely affect our business and our stock price.

We intend to continue to explore and pursue acquisitions and other strategic opportunities to strengthen our business and grow our company. We may make acquisitions or investments or enter into strategic partnerships, joint ventures and other alliances. The market for such transactions is highly competitive, especially in light of historical merger and acquisition activity in our industry. As a result, we may be unable to identify strategic opportunities or we may be unable to negotiate or finance future transactions on terms favorable to us, which could impact our ability to identify growth opportunities. We may finance future transactions by issuing additional equity and/or debt. The issuance of additional equity in connection with any future transaction could be substantially dilutive to our existing shareholders. The issuance of additional debt could increase our leverage substantially. The process of integration also may produce unforeseen regulatory and operating difficulties and expenditures and may divert the attention of management from the ongoing operation of our business. To the 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 ventures in which we do not have a controlling interest, as well as encounter potential conflicts with our joint venture or alliance partners. We may not realize the anticipated growth and other benefits from our growth initiatives and investments, which may have an adverse impact on our financial condition and operating results. We also may be required to take an impairment charge in our financial statements relating to our acquisitions and/or investments, which could negatively affect our stock price. Our recent acquisition of NEX is subject to many of these risks, including the potential we may not achieve the expected cost savings, synergies and other strategic benefits from the transaction within the anticipated time frames and the integration of NEX with our operations may not be successful or may be delayed or more costly than expected, or that our customers will be negatively affected by these changes.

Expansion of our global operations involves special challenges that we may not be able to meet, which could adversely affect our financial results.

We plan to continue to expand our global operations, including through our acquisition of NEX. We face certain risks inherent in doing business in international markets, particularly in our regulated businesses. These risks include:

We cannot assure you that we will be successful in marketing our products and services in international markets. We also may experience difficulty in managing our international operations because of, among other things, competitive conditions overseas, management of FX risk, established domestic markets, language and cultural differences and economic or political instability. Any of these factors could have a material adverse effect on the success of our international operations and, consequently, on our business, financial condition and operating results.

The ultimate impact of Brexit is contingent upon the terms of withdrawal and the ongoing relationship between the U.K. and the European Union. Brexit may result in legal uncertainty and potentially divergent national laws and regulations as the withdrawal process progresses. Additionally, the establishment of certain of our businesses in a European Union jurisdiction will result in increased legal, compliance and operational costs.

Our compliance and risk management programs might not be effective and may result in outcomes that could adversely affect our reputation, financial condition and operating results.

In the normal course of our business, we discuss matters with our regulators including during regulatory examinations, or we may otherwise become subject to their inquiry and oversight. Our regulators have broad enforcement powers, including the power to censure, fine, issue cease-and-desist orders, prohibit us from engaging in some of our businesses or suspend or revoke our regulatory designations or the registration of any of our officers or employees who violate applicable laws or regulations. Our ability to comply with applicable laws and regulations is largely dependent on our establishment and maintenance of compliance, review and reporting systems, as well as our ability to attract and retain qualified compliance and other risk management personnel. We face the risk of significant intervention by regulatory authorities, including extensive examination and surveillance activity. In the case of alleged non-compliance with applicable laws or regulations, we could be subject to investigations and judicial or administrative proceedings that may result in substantial penalties or civil lawsuits, including by customers, for damages, which could be significant. Any of these outcomes may adversely affect our reputation, financial condition and operating results. In extreme cases, these outcomes could adversely affect our ability to conduct our business. For example, in 2013, the CFTC filed suit against NYMEX and two former employees alleging disclosure of confidential customer information in violation of the Commodity Exchange Act. Based on our review of the allegations, we believe that we have strong factual and legal defenses to the claim.

We maintain policies and procedures to prevent, detect, monitor and manage our risks, but such policies and procedures may not be fully effective. Some of our risk management processes depend upon evaluation of information regarding markets, customers, employees or other matters or potential threats that are publicly available or otherwise accessible by us. That information may not in all cases be accurate, complete, up-to-date or properly evaluated. Management of operational, financial, legal and compliance, regulatory, reputational and strategic risk requires, among other things, policies and procedures to record properly and verify a large number of transactions and events. We cannot assure you that our policies and procedures will always be effective or that we will always be successful in monitoring or evaluating the risks to which we are or may be exposed.

We could be harmed by misconduct or errors that are difficult to detect and deter.

There have been a number of highly publicized cases involving fraud or other misconduct by employees of financial services firms in the past. Misconduct by our employees and agents could include hiding unauthorized activities from us, improper or unauthorized activities on behalf of customers or improper use or unauthorized disclosure of confidential information. Misconduct could subject us to financial losses or regulatory sanctions and seriously harm our reputation. It is not always possible to deter misconduct, and the precautions we take to prevent and detect this activity may not be effective in all cases. Our employees and agents also may commit errors that could subject us to financial claims for negligence, as well as regulatory actions, or result in our voluntary assumption of financial liability.

We could be harmed by misconduct occurring on our OTC trading platforms.

There have been a number of highly publicized cases involving manipulative activity or other misconduct in the OTC markets by wholesale market participants. Improper activity on our platform could include activities such as spoofing, layering, wash trading and manipulation. Such misconduct could subject us to financial losses and seriously harm our reputation, and could also result in regulatory sanctions, financial penalties, and restrictions on our activities for failure to properly identify, monitor, and respond to potentially problematic activity. It is not always possible to deter misconduct, and the precautions we take to prevent and detect this activity may not be effective in all cases.

We may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights, which may materially harm our business.

We own the rights to a large number of trademarks, service marks, domain names and trade names in the United States, Europe and other parts of the world. We have registered many of our most important trademarks in the United States and other countries. We hold the rights to a number of patents and have made a number of patent applications. Our patents cover match engine, trader user interface, trading floor support, market data, general technology and clearing house functionalities. We attempt to protect our intellectual property rights by relying on trademarks, copyright, database rights, trade secrets, restrictions on disclosure and other methods. Notwithstanding the precautions we take to protect our intellectual property rights, it is possible that third parties may copy or otherwise obtain and use our proprietary technology without authorization or otherwise infringe on our rights. For example, one of our former employees pleaded guilty to theft of our trade secrets. In addition, in the future, we may have to rely on litigation to enforce our intellectual property rights, protect our trade secrets, determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others or defend against claims of infringement or invalidity. Any such litigation, whether successful or unsuccessful, could result in substantial costs to us and diversions of our resources, either of which could adversely affect our business.

Any infringement by us on patent rights of others could result in litigation and adversely affect our ability to continue to provide, or increase the cost of providing, our products and services.

Patents of third parties may have an important bearing on our ability to offer certain products and services. Our competitors as well as other companies and individuals may obtain, and may be expected to obtain in the future, patents related to the types of products and services we offer or plan to offer. We cannot assure you that we are or will be aware of all patents containing claims that may pose a risk of infringement by our products and services. In addition, some patent applications in the United States are confidential until a patent is issued and, therefore, we cannot evaluate the extent to which our products and services may be covered or asserted to be covered by claims contained in pending patent applications. These claims of infringement are not uncommon in our industry.

In general, if one or more of our products or services were to infringe on patents held by others, we may be required to stop developing or marketing the products or services, to obtain licenses to develop and market the services from the holders of the patents or to redesign the products or services in such a way as to avoid infringing on the patent claims. We cannot assess the extent to which we may be required in the future to obtain licenses with respect to patents held by others, whether such licenses would be available or, if available, whether we would be able to obtain such licenses on commercially reasonable terms. If we were unable to obtain such licenses, we may not be able to redesign our products or services to avoid infringement, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

RISKS RELATING TO AN INVESTMENT IN OUR CLASS A COMMON STOCK

Our indebtedness could adversely affect our financial condition and operations and prevent us from fulfilling our debt service obligations. We might still be able to incur more debt, intensifying these risks.

As of December 31, 2018 , we had approximately $4.4 billion of total indebtedness and we had excess borrowing capacity for general corporate purposes under our existing facilities of approximately $2.0 billion .

Our indebtedness could have important consequences. For example, our indebtedness may:  

The occurrence of any one of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, prospects and ability to satisfy our debt service obligations. In addition, the agreements governing our outstanding indebtedness do not significantly limit our ability to incur additional indebtedness, which could increase the risks described above to the extent that we incur additional debt. Our U.S. exchanges, swap execution facility and clearing house also are required to maintain minimum capital levels as defined by the CFTC, and our BrokerTec broker-dealer is required to meet minimum capital requirements set by the SEC.

Any reduction in our credit rating could increase the cost of our funding from the capital markets.

Our long-term debt is currently rated investment grade by two of the major rating agencies. These rating agencies regularly evaluate us. Their ratings of our long-term debt are based on a number of factors, including our financial strength as well as factors not entirely within our control, such as conditions affecting the financial services industry generally. In light of the difficulties in the financial services industry and the financial markets over the last few years, there can be no assurance that we will maintain our current ratings. In the past, we have experienced ratings downgrades. Our failure to maintain our ratings could adversely affect the cost and other terms upon which we are able to obtain funding and increase our cost of capital. Additionally, if our ratings are downgraded below investment grade due to a change of control, we are required to make an offer to repurchase all of our fixed-rate notes at a price equal to 101% of the principal amount, plus accrued and unpaid interest.

Our operations of, and investments in, businesses outside of the United States subject us to currency risk.

As a global company with operations outside of the United States, which have expanded as a result of our NEX acquisition, portions of our revenues and expenses are denominated in the local currency of the particular subsidiary. Because our consolidated financial statements are presented in U.S. dollars, we must translate non-U.S. dollar denominated revenues, income and expenses, as well as assets and liabilities, into U.S. dollars at exchange rates in effect during or at the end of each reporting period. Therefore, increases or decreases in the value of the U.S. dollar against the other currencies may affect our operating income and the value of balance sheet items denominated in foreign currencies.

Our average rate per contract for our derivatives business is subject to fluctuation due to a number of factors. As a result, you may not be able to rely on our average rate per contract in any particular period as an indication of our future average rate per contract.

Our average rate per contract for our derivatives business, which impacts our operating results, is subject to fluctuation due to shifts in the mix of products traded, the trading venue and the mix of customers (whether the customer receives member or non-member fees or participates in one of our various incentive programs) and the impact of our tiered pricing structure. In addition, our members and participants in our various incentive programs generally are charged lower fees than our non-member customers. Variation in each of these factors is difficult to predict and will have an impact on our average rate per contract in the particular period. Because of this fluctuation, you may not be able to rely on our average rate per contract in any particular period as an indication of our future average rate per contract. If we fail to meet securities analysts' expectations regarding our operating results, the price of our Class A common stock could decline substantially.

Our cost structure is largely fixed. If our revenues decline and we are unable to reduce our costs, our profitability will be adversely affected.

Our cost structure is largely fixed. If demand for our products and services and our resulting revenues decline, we may not be able to adjust our cost structure on a timely basis. In that event, our profitability would be adversely affected.

Eleven of our board members own trading rights or are officers or directors of firms that own trading rights on our derivatives exchanges. As members, these individuals may have interests that differ from or conflict with those of shareholders who are not also members. Our dependence on the trading and clearing activities of our members, combined with the CME members' rights to elect six directors, may enable them to exert substantial influence over the operation of our business.

Eleven of our directors own or are officers or directors of firms that own trading rights on our exchanges. We are dependent on the revenues from the trading and clearing activities of our members. In 2018 , 84% of our derivatives contract volume was derived from our members. This dependence may give them substantial influence over how we operate our business.

Many of our members and clearing firms derive a substantial portion of their income from their trading or clearing activities on or through our exchanges. In addition, trading rights on our exchanges have substantial independent value. The amount of income that members derive from their trading, brokering and clearing activities and the value of their trading rights are, in part, dependent on the fees they are charged to trade, broker, clear and access our markets, and the rules and structure of our markets. As a result, members may not have the same economic interests as holders of our Class A common stock. In addition, our members may have differing interests among themselves depending on the roles they serve in our markets, their methods of trading and the products they trade. Consequently, members may advocate that we enhance and protect their clearing and trading opportunities and the value of their trading privileges over their investment in our Class A common stock, if any.

Our members have been granted special rights, which protect their trading privileges, require that we maintain open outcry for options products still meeting certain volume thresholds and, in the case of our Class B shareholders, provide them with special board representation.

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 benefit protections. Additionally, our Class B shareholders, who are members of our CME exchange, are entitled to elect six directors to our board even if their Class A share ownership interest is very small or non-existent. We have limited ability to eliminate these election rights. In 2018, we held a special meeting of shareholders to eliminate all or some of these director election rights. While the proposal received majority support, it failed to achieve the required support under Delaware law from a majority of the outstanding owners of the Class B common stock. In connection with these rights, our ability to take 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.