Derek Sammann: Yes, I think we’ve seen a really spectacular rise in our metals activity, and Dan, as you know, our metals activity is made up both of the precious metal side and the base metal side. Q1 was a little bit quiet – volumes up for the first quarter were 4%. What you’ve seen is a significant move and change in expectations around the role that gold is playing in the market. I think a lot of us scratched our heads over the last few years about why gold was stuck below $2,000. We saw a significant run-up in participation and growth and we’ve actually seen very healthy activity and participation across each of our client segments. When you look at kind of the spread of activity in that market, it’s a market that has very healthy participation across not just the commercial participants but buy side as well, and we’ve seen that activity increase and accelerate.
In Q1, we saw really nice growth on the base metal side of the business, up 15%. There was a lot of questions there about global growth, questions around China and electrification generally of the grid globally. That’s typically really good for markets like copper and aluminum, where we’re seeing records in the early stages of our aluminum growth there. When you look at the growth and the activity, we see it healthy across client segments. We’re seeing significant growth across regions, and our options business, as Terry said earlier, set records not just for options but the full complex in April, so very happy with the client growth, very happy with the product growth across asset classes, and across regions as well.
Terrence Duffy: Dan, let me just add to what Derek said, because I think it’s really important. We talked a moment ago in our prepared remarks about how all six asset classes are achieving the levels that they are doing. I’ve talked to several people just recently as the metals run-up has happened, who I thought never traded in metals anymore because of the price action, but are back in the marketplace now. You asked, I think specifically about the customer, is the customer healthy – I don’t how you phrased it, but I will tell you that it’s amazing, and this is a story that we’ve been telling for 22 years, is when one asset class might quiet down, they go to another one. We’re seeing a big divergence into these metals from people that used to participate, that have gone other places.
That’s really fascinating for us to continue to see, but the bigger part of the picture is all six asset classes are humming along, so I think it’s really healthy for the client across CME.
Dan Fannon: Great, thank you.
Operator: The next question in the queue is from Patrick Moley with Piper Sandler. Your line is open.
Patrick Moley: Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Terry, for a few quarters now, you’ve expressed an openness to potential M&A as an avenue of future growth, so was just hoping to get your updated thoughts on M&A and kind of the areas and asset classes that you’re focused on when it comes to potential M&A opportunities.
Terrence Duffy: Thanks Patrick. I don’t know if I’ve been open to discussing that. I think that I have said that CME is in a strong position, if in fact the right transaction was to come along and made sense for our shareholders and our clients. I’m not out looking for particular deals, I just said that we are in a strong position to do so, if it were to arise. Again, that mindset has not changed. One of the things that we are obviously excited about is what I just said – all six asset classes going at the same time. That may open up different opportunities as it relates to some potential M&A activity, if we see something, but again we’re not out shopping at the moment for anything, but we are always open to looking at something that’s of value to our clients and shareholders. What was the other part of your question, Patrick?
Patrick Moley: No, you hit on all of them. That was great. Thank you.
Terrence Duffy: Okay, thanks.
Operator: The next question in the queue is from Alex Kramm with UBS. Your line is open.
Alex Kramm: Yes, hey, good morning everyone. Just a quick one on market data. You pointed out some one time-ish, episodic revenues here – I think one was audit, and I get that, but the other one was in derived data and that was a bigger number, so maybe you can just remind us why that comes with sometimes episodic revenue. But then bigger picture, I think a few years ago, derived data was a big new initiative, and we would hope it is maybe a little bit more of a stable revenue source at this point, so maybe you can just give us an update where we stand, in particular as it also pertains to what you’re doing with Google on the market data side. Thanks.
Terrence Duffy: Thanks Alex. I’ll turn it over to Julie Winkler, and I don’t know if Sunil wants to chime in as it relates to Google. Julie?
Julie Winkler: Yes, thanks for the question, Alex. The data services business obviously in general had a great quarter – you know, $175 million in revenue, up another 6%. This is on the back of a record year from last year. The key growth part of that is certainly with our professional subscriber revenue – that is our core revenue base that is coming and delivering over 80% of that revenue. As it relates back to those more episodic [indiscernible] sporadic revenues each quarter, right, certainly we’ve talked a lot about the unpredictable nature of the audit. If you think about derived, there’s two pieces of derived data revenue, specifically an annual component of that as well as a variable component, and so there were some true-ups that we saw.
