CME Group (CME -5.20%) reported some good news Wednesday morning, and investors rewarded the company by trading its stock up on the day. Following the release of its fourth-quarter results before the market opened, the shares zoomed up to close nearly 4% higher. That outpaced the slightly less than 1% gain of the S&P 500 index.
Double beats for the fourth quarter
For the period, CME, which owns and operates a collection of derivatives markets, posted revenue of $1.44 billion. This was up from the $1.21 billion it earned in Q4 2022. On the bottom line, CME netted a non-GAAP (adjusted) profit of nearly $865 million ($2.37 per share), which was substantially higher than the $689 million of the year-ago period.
Both headline figures topped analysts' consensus estimates. On average, pundits tracking CME were modeling for adjusted net income of $2.28 per share and revenue of $1.42 billion.
Higher trading volumes were the major drivers of those increases on the top and bottom lines. In its earnings release, CME said that its average daily trading volume hit a new annual record in 2023. Specifically in the fourth quarter, the company benefited from a sharp rise in U.S. Treasury bond futures activity.
NASDAQ: CME
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Sharing the wealth
CME also didn't hesitate to point out that it is returning some of those enhanced profits to shareholders. Last week, it pulled the lever on a dividend raise, hiking its quarterly payout to $1.15 per share. The company also habitually pays an annual variable dividend; this, declared in December for 2023, was $5.25 per share.
