Cboe Global Markets (CBOE)
Operates markets for SPX and VIX derivatives, equities, futures, and market data.
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Cboe runs marketplaces where other people's trades get matched, and takes a small toll on each one. Most of what it keeps comes from one narrow place: options on a broad U.S. stock index that no other American exchange may list, and on Cboe's own measure of how jumpy markets are. Everything else is a scrap with near-identical rivals. It is selling off the edges and putting new kinds of contracts in front of traders.
Item facts: FY2025 · year ended Dec 31, 2025, from filings, earnings calls and company pages.
Judgment weights, not filed revenue
The band summarizes business focus and direction. ~ marks estimates.
8 in detail · 12 more below
SPX index options
Contracts that pay out on moves in the S&P 500 — the single largest source of Cboe's money, better than a third of it. Versions that expire the same day drove the growth; the exclusive right to list them runs to the end of 2032.
Competes with E-mini S&P 500 options on futures (CME Group) · Nasdaq-100 index options (NDX) (Nasdaq) · SPY and IWM ETF options (every U.S. options exchange)
In plain English
Think of insurance on the whole American stock market: pay a fee now, collect if the index moves past a line you picked, collect nothing if it doesn't. That is an S&P 500 option, and Cboe is the only U.S. exchange allowed to list them — S&P Dow Jones Indices, which owns the index, licenses it exclusively through 2032 and earns a royalty as volume grows.
Because nobody else can offer the identical contract, Cboe sets the price: its index contracts earned about 95 cents each in spring 2026. Its ten biggest customers — the trading firms and global banks that quote prices all day — supply roughly 57% of everything the company collects.
VIX options and futures
Trades on Cboe's own gauge of how much the market expects to swing — about a tenth of revenue, and Cboe owns the gauge, so no royalty leaks out. Options set a third straight record; futures have been sliding.
Competes with SPIKES futures and options (MIAX Futures) · E-mini S&P 500 options on futures (CME Group) · Private volatility swaps (Bank dealers)
In plain English
VIX is a number Cboe publishes: roughly how much investors expect the S&P 500 to jump around over the coming month. Cboe owns and calculates it, so unlike the S&P 500 contracts, no royalty leaks out to anyone else.
Two things trade on it. Options, bought by funds that want protection when markets turn choppy, hit a third record year in a row at about 862,000 contracts a day. Futures, favoured by volatility funds and the fund issuers that track them, went the other way — August 2026 ran roughly a quarter below the year before. This demand arrives in bursts, and calm markets are the lean season.
Cboe Data Vantage
The subscription side: price feeds, historical data, index licences, and the ports and cabinets firms rent to plug in. About a quarter of revenue, guided to low-double-digit growth, with most new money coming from new subscribers rather than higher prices.
Competes with Nasdaq market data and Data Link (Nasdaq) · ICE Data Services and NYSE feeds (Intercontinental Exchange) · Index licensing (MSCI)
In plain English
Everything here that isn't a trading fee. Firms pay every month for the live prices coming off Cboe's exchanges, for old data pulled out of an archive, for the right to build funds on Cboe's indexes, and for the physical hook-up — a rented port, a cabinet of their own machines sitting beside the exchange's.
It behaves like a gym membership: signed once, billed forever, and cheap to add the next member because every Cboe market now runs on one shared system. Takings were $635.5 million in 2025 — about a quarter of the $2.4 billion Cboe keeps after paying out trader rebates and passing on government fees.
U.S. equities exchanges and BIDS
Four U.S. stock exchanges plus BIDS, where institutions trade big blocks privately — the third-largest U.S. stock trading group by Cboe's own count. Trading fees here are thin; the subscriptions sold alongside land in Data Vantage.
Competes with NYSE and NYSE Arca (Intercontinental Exchange) · Nasdaq's equity markets (Nasdaq) · Liquidnet block venue (TP ICAP)
In plain English
Four electronic markets matching buyers and sellers in ordinary shares, plus BIDS, where institutions swap large blocks away from the public queue. Cboe is the only U.S. group running both kinds of venue.
What makes it hard is the leftover. To pull in quotes, Cboe pays traders a rebate for posting them — across all its markets those payments came to $1.7 billion in 2025 — and charges the other side a little more. The gap is the entire business. Volume follows the market's mood rather than climbing steadily: shares matched in August 2026 ran below the same month a year earlier. The real prize is selling data and connections to the same firms.
Cboe Europe Equities and Cboe Clear Europe
One venue for shares across many European countries, plus the clearing house that settles up behind it — roughly a quarter of pan-European trading. With the European derivatives arm closed, lending and bond clearing is the stated growth route.
Competes with London Stock Exchange and Turquoise (LSEG) · Xetra (Deutsche Börse) · x-clear share clearing (SIX)
In plain English
Two businesses stacked on each other. The first matches trades in European shares from many countries on a single system, and has taken about a quarter of all pan-European volume — a record €17.3 billion a day early in 2026.
The second, Cboe Clear Europe, steps into the middle of every finished trade so neither side has to trust the other, and charges for standing there; it handled 39.6% of European share clearing late in 2025. That middleman role has since been extended to share lending, with about €9 billion of loans outstanding on an average day at end-July 2026, and to bonds from August. With the European derivatives exchange shut, this is where growth is meant to come from.
Options on single stocks and funds
The same contracts every rival lists, so price is the whole fight: a record 13.5 million a day changed hands in 2025 while Cboe's take slipped to about six cents each. More units, thinner slice.
Competes with ISE, GEMX, MRX and PHLX options (Nasdaq) · MIAX Pearl, Emerald and Sapphire (Miami International Holdings) · NYSE American and Arca Options (Intercontinental Exchange)
In plain English
An option on one company's shares, or on a fund that trades like a share, is the identical contract wherever you buy it — it changes hands on roughly sixteen U.S. exchanges at once, so venues compete on rebates and access until the fee is worn down to nothing. Cboe kept about 6.4 cents a contract in spring 2026, down from 6.8 cents.
It still earns its place. Volumes set records — 13.5 million contracts a day in 2025 — and that flow feeds the data and connection subscriptions that pay far better. Cboe's four options markets handle roughly three in ten U.S. options contracts, with Nasdaq about level and MIAX climbing behind them.
Cboe FX
An electronic marketplace where banks and funds swap currencies. Small — about 3% of revenue — but the quickest-growing part of Cboe in early 2026, on a record $52.8 billion of currency crossing it per day in 2025.
Competes with EBS Market (CME Group) · FX Matching and FXall (LSEG) · 360T (Deutsche Börse)
In plain English
Currency trading is spread across many venues rather than gathered on one exchange, with banks and large funds mostly dealing straight with each other. Cboe FX gives them a single screen where those deals meet, covering both money swapped now and agreements to swap it at a set future date.
The platform takes a sliver of each amount traded — almost nothing per deal, but the amounts are enormous: $52.8 billion of currency moved across it on an average day in 2025, a record, with August 2026 running higher still. Revenue here jumped 38% in the first quarter of 2026, the strongest of any part of Cboe — off much the smallest base.
Cboe Predicts and event contracts
Yes/no contracts that pay $100 if something turns out true — first on the S&P 500 since June 2026, next on company results if the SEC agrees. No revenue yet, and management kept it out of this year's forecast entirely.
Competes with Event contracts (Kalshi) · Prediction markets (Polymarket) · ForecastEx event contracts (Interactive Brokers)
In plain English
Launched in June 2026: a contract that asks one question — will the S&P 500 finish above this level? — and pays $100 if the answer is yes, nothing if it is no. It settles through OCC, the clearing house that stands behind U.S. options.
Charles Schwab signed on as the anchor broker, three trading firms stand ready to quote prices, and Interactive Brokers carries it. In July, Cboe asked regulators to let it run the same idea on company numbers — a chipmaker's data-centre revenue, say — across 23 heavily traded names. Kalshi, the established event-contract venue, has asked the SEC to slow that down.
SPX index optionsContracts that pay out on moves in the S&P 500 — the single largest source of Cboe's money, better than a third of it. Versions that expire the same day drove the growth; the exclusive right to list them runs to the end of 2032.Contracts that pay out on moves in the S&P 500 — the single largest source of Cboe's money, better than a third of it. Versions that expire the same day drove the growth; the exclusive right to list them runs to the end of 2032.
In plain English
Think of insurance on the whole American stock market: pay a fee now, collect if the index moves past a line you picked, collect nothing if it doesn't. That is an S&P 500 option, and Cboe is the only U.S. exchange allowed to list them — S&P Dow Jones Indices, which owns the index, licenses it exclusively through 2032 and earns a royalty as volume grows.
Because nobody else can offer the identical contract, Cboe sets the price: its index contracts earned about 95 cents each in spring 2026. Its ten biggest customers — the trading firms and global banks that quote prices all day — supply roughly 57% of everything the company collects.
Competes with E-mini S&P 500 options on futures (CME Group) · Nasdaq-100 index options (NDX) (Nasdaq) · SPY and IWM ETF options (every U.S. options exchange)
VIX options and futuresTrades on Cboe's own gauge of how much the market expects to swing — about a tenth of revenue, and Cboe owns the gauge, so no royalty leaks out. Options set a third straight record; futures have been sliding.Trades on Cboe's own gauge of how much the market expects to swing — about a tenth of revenue, and Cboe owns the gauge, so no royalty leaks out. Options set a third straight record; futures have been sliding.
In plain English
VIX is a number Cboe publishes: roughly how much investors expect the S&P 500 to jump around over the coming month. Cboe owns and calculates it, so unlike the S&P 500 contracts, no royalty leaks out to anyone else.
Two things trade on it. Options, bought by funds that want protection when markets turn choppy, hit a third record year in a row at about 862,000 contracts a day. Futures, favoured by volatility funds and the fund issuers that track them, went the other way — August 2026 ran roughly a quarter below the year before. This demand arrives in bursts, and calm markets are the lean season.
Competes with SPIKES futures and options (MIAX Futures) · E-mini S&P 500 options on futures (CME Group) · Private volatility swaps (Bank dealers)
Cboe Data VantageThe subscription side: price feeds, historical data, index licences, and the ports and cabinets firms rent to plug in. About a quarter of revenue, guided to low-double-digit growth, with most new money coming from new subscribers rather than higher prices.The subscription side: price feeds, historical data, index licences, and the ports and cabinets firms rent to plug in. About a quarter of revenue, guided to low-double-digit growth, with most new money coming from new subscribers rather than higher prices.
In plain English
Everything here that isn't a trading fee. Firms pay every month for the live prices coming off Cboe's exchanges, for old data pulled out of an archive, for the right to build funds on Cboe's indexes, and for the physical hook-up — a rented port, a cabinet of their own machines sitting beside the exchange's.
It behaves like a gym membership: signed once, billed forever, and cheap to add the next member because every Cboe market now runs on one shared system. Takings were $635.5 million in 2025 — about a quarter of the $2.4 billion Cboe keeps after paying out trader rebates and passing on government fees.
Competes with Nasdaq market data and Data Link (Nasdaq) · ICE Data Services and NYSE feeds (Intercontinental Exchange) · Index licensing (MSCI)
U.S. equities exchanges and BIDSFour U.S. stock exchanges plus BIDS, where institutions trade big blocks privately — the third-largest U.S. stock trading group by Cboe's own count. Trading fees here are thin; the subscriptions sold alongside land in Data Vantage.Four U.S. stock exchanges plus BIDS, where institutions trade big blocks privately — the third-largest U.S. stock trading group by Cboe's own count. Trading fees here are thin; the subscriptions sold alongside land in Data Vantage.
In plain English
Four electronic markets matching buyers and sellers in ordinary shares, plus BIDS, where institutions swap large blocks away from the public queue. Cboe is the only U.S. group running both kinds of venue.
What makes it hard is the leftover. To pull in quotes, Cboe pays traders a rebate for posting them — across all its markets those payments came to $1.7 billion in 2025 — and charges the other side a little more. The gap is the entire business. Volume follows the market's mood rather than climbing steadily: shares matched in August 2026 ran below the same month a year earlier. The real prize is selling data and connections to the same firms.
Competes with NYSE and NYSE Arca (Intercontinental Exchange) · Nasdaq's equity markets (Nasdaq) · Liquidnet block venue (TP ICAP)
Cboe Europe Equities and Cboe Clear EuropeOne venue for shares across many European countries, plus the clearing house that settles up behind it — roughly a quarter of pan-European trading. With the European derivatives arm closed, lending and bond clearing is the stated growth route.One venue for shares across many European countries, plus the clearing house that settles up behind it — roughly a quarter of pan-European trading. With the European derivatives arm closed, lending and bond clearing is the stated growth route.
In plain English
Two businesses stacked on each other. The first matches trades in European shares from many countries on a single system, and has taken about a quarter of all pan-European volume — a record €17.3 billion a day early in 2026.
The second, Cboe Clear Europe, steps into the middle of every finished trade so neither side has to trust the other, and charges for standing there; it handled 39.6% of European share clearing late in 2025. That middleman role has since been extended to share lending, with about €9 billion of loans outstanding on an average day at end-July 2026, and to bonds from August. With the European derivatives exchange shut, this is where growth is meant to come from.
Competes with London Stock Exchange and Turquoise (LSEG) · Xetra (Deutsche Börse) · x-clear share clearing (SIX)
Options on single stocks and fundsThe same contracts every rival lists, so price is the whole fight: a record 13.5 million a day changed hands in 2025 while Cboe's take slipped to about six cents each. More units, thinner slice.The same contracts every rival lists, so price is the whole fight: a record 13.5 million a day changed hands in 2025 while Cboe's take slipped to about six cents each. More units, thinner slice.
In plain English
An option on one company's shares, or on a fund that trades like a share, is the identical contract wherever you buy it — it changes hands on roughly sixteen U.S. exchanges at once, so venues compete on rebates and access until the fee is worn down to nothing. Cboe kept about 6.4 cents a contract in spring 2026, down from 6.8 cents.
It still earns its place. Volumes set records — 13.5 million contracts a day in 2025 — and that flow feeds the data and connection subscriptions that pay far better. Cboe's four options markets handle roughly three in ten U.S. options contracts, with Nasdaq about level and MIAX climbing behind them.
Competes with ISE, GEMX, MRX and PHLX options (Nasdaq) · MIAX Pearl, Emerald and Sapphire (Miami International Holdings) · NYSE American and Arca Options (Intercontinental Exchange)
Cboe FXAn electronic marketplace where banks and funds swap currencies. Small — about 3% of revenue — but the quickest-growing part of Cboe in early 2026, on a record $52.8 billion of currency crossing it per day in 2025.An electronic marketplace where banks and funds swap currencies. Small — about 3% of revenue — but the quickest-growing part of Cboe in early 2026, on a record $52.8 billion of currency crossing it per day in 2025.
In plain English
Currency trading is spread across many venues rather than gathered on one exchange, with banks and large funds mostly dealing straight with each other. Cboe FX gives them a single screen where those deals meet, covering both money swapped now and agreements to swap it at a set future date.
The platform takes a sliver of each amount traded — almost nothing per deal, but the amounts are enormous: $52.8 billion of currency moved across it on an average day in 2025, a record, with August 2026 running higher still. Revenue here jumped 38% in the first quarter of 2026, the strongest of any part of Cboe — off much the smallest base.
Competes with EBS Market (CME Group) · FX Matching and FXall (LSEG) · 360T (Deutsche Börse)
Cboe Predicts and event contractsYes/no contracts that pay $100 if something turns out true — first on the S&P 500 since June 2026, next on company results if the SEC agrees. No revenue yet, and management kept it out of this year's forecast entirely.Yes/no contracts that pay $100 if something turns out true — first on the S&P 500 since June 2026, next on company results if the SEC agrees. No revenue yet, and management kept it out of this year's forecast entirely.
In plain English
Launched in June 2026: a contract that asks one question — will the S&P 500 finish above this level? — and pays $100 if the answer is yes, nothing if it is no. It settles through OCC, the clearing house that stands behind U.S. options.
Charles Schwab signed on as the anchor broker, three trading firms stand ready to quote prices, and Interactive Brokers carries it. In July, Cboe asked regulators to let it run the same idea on company numbers — a chipmaker's data-centre revenue, say — across 23 heavily traded names. Kalshi, the established event-contract venue, has asked the SEC to slow that down.
Competes with Event contracts (Kalshi) · Prediction markets (Polymarket) · ForecastEx event contracts (Interactive Brokers)
Named in filings, launches and programs
- Cboe BZX ETP listingsServiceWhere funds that trade like shares get listed; 24 from one issuer joined in July 2026. Kept and cost-trimmed when company listings were dropped.
- Cboe Clear U.S.BrandSettles up behind Cboe's futures. Applied to the SEC in July 2026 for the status it needs to clear the new event contracts too.
- Cboe Clear Europe SFT — fixed incomeService · RampingClearing for bond lending, opened 24 August 2026 — the European clearing house reaching past shares for the first time.
- BIDS Trading / BIDS EuropePlatformBlock-trading venues for institutions on both sides of the Atlantic; U.S. volume through BIDS rose 146% to 197 million shares a day in late 2025.
- Cboe Global IndicesServiceBuilds and licenses the index calculations others pay to use, VIX among them. Billed inside Data Vantage.
- Cboe TitaniumPlatformThe one trading system every Cboe market has run on since early 2025. Not sold to outsiders, but it makes each extra product cheap to add.
- Cboe One Feed, DataShop and Options LiteProductThe named data products: one combined price feed covering all four U.S. stock exchanges, a shop selling historical prices, and Options Lite.
- FLEX options and continuous futuresProductOptions with terms written to order, and futures that never expire — listed products for traders who want something off the standard menu.
- Digital asset futuresProduct lineCrypto futures, folded into the futures business in early 2025 when the separate digital unit stopped being reported on its own.
- Risk and market analyticsServiceKept, but cost-cut in the 2025 realignment, with the smaller units either slimmed down or exited outright.
- Government fee pass-throughsService$285.4M of 2025 billings collected for regulators and paid straight on. Profit-neutral, and a rate change explains most swings in the headline revenue line.
- Undisclosed largest customerCustomer programOne unnamed customer was about 10% of total billings in each of 2023, 2024 and 2025, spread across all five reported segments.
Cboe BZX ETP listingsService
Where funds that trade like shares get listed; 24 from one issuer joined in July 2026. Kept and cost-trimmed when company listings were dropped.
Cboe Clear U.S.Brand
Settles up behind Cboe's futures. Applied to the SEC in July 2026 for the status it needs to clear the new event contracts too.
Cboe Clear Europe SFT — fixed incomeService · Ramping
Clearing for bond lending, opened 24 August 2026 — the European clearing house reaching past shares for the first time.
BIDS Trading / BIDS EuropePlatform
Block-trading venues for institutions on both sides of the Atlantic; U.S. volume through BIDS rose 146% to 197 million shares a day in late 2025.
Cboe Global IndicesService
Builds and licenses the index calculations others pay to use, VIX among them. Billed inside Data Vantage.
Cboe TitaniumPlatform
The one trading system every Cboe market has run on since early 2025. Not sold to outsiders, but it makes each extra product cheap to add.
Cboe One Feed, DataShop and Options LiteProduct
The named data products: one combined price feed covering all four U.S. stock exchanges, a shop selling historical prices, and Options Lite.
FLEX options and continuous futuresProduct
Options with terms written to order, and futures that never expire — listed products for traders who want something off the standard menu.
Digital asset futuresProduct line
Crypto futures, folded into the futures business in early 2025 when the separate digital unit stopped being reported on its own.
Risk and market analyticsService
Kept, but cost-cut in the 2025 realignment, with the smaller units either slimmed down or exited outright.
Government fee pass-throughsService
$285.4M of 2025 billings collected for regulators and paid straight on. Profit-neutral, and a rate change explains most swings in the headline revenue line.
Undisclosed largest customerCustomer program
One unnamed customer was about 10% of total billings in each of 2023, 2024 and 2025, spread across all five reported segments.