Terrence Duffy: Thanks Julie. Benjamin, thank you for the question.
Operator: We now have a question from Alex Kramm with UBS. Your line is open.
Alex Kramm: Yes, hey again. Just wanted to pop back in for a model clean-up. Can you just, unless I missed it, give us an update on cash and non-cash collateral, rates you’ve realized, etc., stuff that I often ask anyways?
Terrence Duffy: Lynne?
Lynne Fitzpatrick: Sure, Alex. For the quarter, average U.S. cash balance is about $76 billion, and we earned about 36 basis points on that cash. On the non-cash, the average balances for the quarter were about $159 billion, earning 10 basis points.
Alex Kramm: Any updates how it’s trending? I think cash seems to be trending a little bit softer, but maybe a quick update. I know it’s only been three weeks.
Lynne Fitzpatrick: Yes, so far in April, our average U.S. dollar cash balance is about $73 billion, and the non-cash is averaging $160 billion, $163 billion, so similar to what we saw in Q4–sorry, Q1, excuse me.
Alex Kramm: Excellent, thanks for that.
Terrence Duffy: Thanks Alex.
Operator: Our next question is from Eli Abboud with Bank of America. Your line is open.
Eli Abboud: Hi, good morning. This is Eli Abboud from Craig’s team. Thanks for squeezing me in. Given the prospect of new competition, I was hoping you could speak to the size of your network in interest rate futures, and maybe more specifically, how many unique firms are providing liquidity in rates futures on a daily basis, and when you look at the top handful of market makers, what proportion of liquidity provision are they accounting for?
Terrence Duffy: Yes, thanks Eli. We don’t–I’m going to let Tim go ahead and answer it, then I’ll jump in as well.
Tim McCourt: Yes, thanks Eli. As you can understand, we don’t comment on the number of exact firms providing liquidity in a given market or at a given time, or who’s in what provision program or what a certain subset of participants might be doing. The anonymity of the CLOB is an important part of the efficacy and efficiency of risk transfer and price discovery process here at CME, but what I can tell you is that our network is strong for interest rate futures, and to your question, while liquidity providers are an important part of this ecosystem, they are not the only part. We have a mix of customer personas with different and risk management needs that leads to the efficient transfer of risk when the market and our participants need it most.
If we look to the growing and record-setting ADVS in our complex for treasury, futures and options, as Terry said, nearly 8 million contracts per day. We have record daily open interest levels in our combined futures complex–sorry, our combined rates futures complex of over $33 million. Large open interest holders topped a new record of 3,300 large traders just earlier this month, and again the capital efficiencies we’ve talked about at length on this call, when you combine all of these things, it’s fair to say our network is immensely strong, global in nature, and is vital to allow our participants to continue to manage their risk.
Terrence Duffy: Thanks Tim. Thanks Eli, appreciate your question.
Eli Abboud: Thanks.
Operator: Our next question is from Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.
Brian Bedell : Great, thanks very much. Mine is on the cash collateral, but I will squeeze one more in on rates, if I can. The basis trading, just if you want to–if you can comment on your view on how that component of trading may continue to progress through the year. Clearly there’s a lot of value in the arbitrage process there, and of course TradeWeb has made an acquisition of a systematic trader rates in. Do you see that as expanding the activity in basis trading, or the other way around?
Terrence Duffy: Thanks Brian. Tim, do you want to continue?
Tim McCourt: Sure. Brian, I think certainly when we look at the basis trading, it’s a trade that has persisted in the market now for several years. When we look at the combination of trading futures alongside cash, that’s certainly something CME is uniquely positioned in our ability to help facilitate that. But it is important to note that basis trading does change some of the characteristics of how participants may be trading or the size they may be trading in and the different modalities they use, so it’s important for us to make sure we’re working with all of the participants, whether they are banks, hedge funds, market makers, or even other providers such as TradeWeb that you mentioned, they’re all connecting to CME on the futures side of the transaction, so that’s something that when we combine these assets together for BrokerTec and CME, that’s a very hard thing for the marketplace to replicate.
It’s an important trade, it’s continuing, and it’s something with the rate environment we’re in, we do expect it to continue, but hard to say if it will continue to grow or shrink from here. But the important part is when clients need to manage that risk, we have both tools here at CME for them to be able to [indiscernible].
Terrence Duffy: Thanks Tim. Thanks Brian, appreciate your question.
Brian Bedell: Thank you.
Operator: Our next question is from Owen Lau with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.
Owen Lau: Thank you for also squeezing me in. I know it’s not material to your financials, but it’s getting much attention recently. If the SEC were to [indiscernible] security, how would CME respond to it? Thanks.
Terrence Duffy: Yes, thanks Owen. On the crypto, Tim?
Tim McCourt: Thanks Owen. It’s certainly something that we’ve heard customers talk about, markets and whether or not Ether will become a security. However, it’s important to note our primary regulator, the CFTC, has said unequivocally that Ether is a commodity. Based on that clarity, we have listed this product for years under the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction. The SEC did not object to this approach when we listed the contract. That will be the path we take forward until we learn otherwise with respect to our Ether futures and options here at CME Group.
