Cboe Global Markets Inc at Barclays Global Financial Services Conference Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Just getting started, you're new to the CEO seat, I think, starting this past spring. Cboe's strategy has shifted a bit over the past few years. You've come out of a period of heavy acquisitions to recently a sharper focus on things like index options, data. So for you coming into this role, can you talk about your assessment of Cboe thus far? How do you think about the growth strategy? Where do you see the biggest opportunities?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Just kind of a more near-term macro question, it's been a very volatile year. I think the VIX had its third highest level in the last 20 years, with the only other exceptions being peak COVID and the peak of GFC. What are you seeing from customers? How are they behaving on the retail institutional side? How are they using the Cboe product suite to the evolving market?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : That's a good segue into the next couple of questions on the retail segment. So there's been a number of retail brokerage firms bringing index options to their platforms, Robinhood, more recently, more mature platforms like interactive brokers seeing a lot of healthy ongoing adoption, Charles Schwab as well. And all of these have pretty fairly active trader bases. So how big of a TAM would you say there is for retail trading index options in particular? How much growth is there to come from new-to-platform brokers versus existing retail clients kind of doing more with what they're already doing?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Well, you answered half of my next question, which was your international expansion on APAC in particular. But maybe digging a little bit deeper, talk about where you are in that journey. There's countries where you're focused, you have some partnerships. What does retail engagement with Options look like in those geographies relative to the US, and maybe what other regions could, at some point, be attractive for deeper retail penetration?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : All right. Maybe digging a little bit more into index options in particular. XSP has seen some really strong growth over the past several months. Can you talk about the drivers of growth for that product in particular? And how do you think about the growth in the mini suite more broadly versus your kind of flagship FX product?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Great. In terms of shorter-dated options, I mean, that's also been very popular with the retail cohort. We've seen over the last several years 0DTE really expanding as an overall percent of SPX in particular. How much further growth do you think there is for short-dated options? How do you think about 0DTE relative to total SPX, or are there kind of products where you're offering that sort of short-dated exposure? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 08, 2025 / 2:30PM, CBOE.Z - Cboe Global Markets Inc at Barclays Global Financial Services Conference

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Maybe kind of high level, we talked about XSP specifically, but SPX is your biggest contract and the most lucrative for Cboe. That has also continued to grow year over year even against some pretty tough comps. What do you think are the key drivers, maybe more broadly, of SPX index options going forward? I felt like in August in particular, looking across some of the other exchanges, commodities, we saw a bit of a slowdown that did not happen for Options. So is it just ongoing retail adoption? Is it ongoing volatility? How do we think more kind of high level about these longer-term drivers?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Maybe one last question on the short-dated side, so earlier this year, competitor applied to list Monday, Wednesdays for a number of single stocks, which would make them available for expiry every day, Mag 7, a couple of other names. How do you think short-dated single-stock equities would affect the overall market? Are these competitive threats to Cboe's index options franchise? Or is there an eventual opportunity for Cboe? Is it all kind of symbiotic and how do you think about that?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : All right. Maybe switching gears to the data side. So Data Vantage has been -- I think the growth has been accelerating over the past couple of quarters. It was over 10% in Q2, which is ahead of your medium-term guide. I guess, maybe thinking more tactically short term, what's been driving that acceleration and what prevented you from increasing the guide for the rest of the year? It looks like things are set up pretty nicely for you to beat your expectations. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 08, 2025 / 2:30PM, CBOE.Z - Cboe Global Markets Inc at Barclays Global Financial Services Conference

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : And what are the key growth drivers, more particularly? Is it -- does it simply grow with users, the number of individuals trading that need to consume Options data? Is it the number of retail brokerage partners? Are there pricing opportunities? I think Cboe's line has always been growth first, maybe pricing later. Are there new product opportunities there? How do you think about all those pieces?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Maybe switching gears a little bit, thinking about newer opportunities. The industry has a large focus on crypto, digital assets, tokenization. Do you have a view on where tokenization or blockchain technology more broadly could fit into Cboe's business? Where are the opportunities as you see them?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Got it. What about other newer types of technologies, new types of trading? We see a lot of interest in like prediction markets from the other retail brokers that I'm sure you're partnering with on the Options side. Is there a role for Cboe to play on that side of things?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Got it. Another kind of new product question, I think on your last earnings call, you talked a little bit about derivatives-based ETFs. Can you maybe talk a little bit about what you're currently doing there? How do you think about that opportunity?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Great. A regulatory question, given the changing regulatory environment, new leadership at the SEC, how do you think about either opportunities? I mean, crypto is kind of an obvious one that you talked about, or potential threats, things like potential Rule 611 repeal, changes to the OCC margin model? What's your kind of take on the landscape there?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Makes sense. Maybe switching gears a little bit to M&A and capital allocation. So earlier this year, after you had started, Cboe announced the wind-down of your Japanese Equities business. It seemed to have happened pretty quickly after you moved into the seat. Can you talk about that decision in particular, what sort of drove that?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Got it. You kind of answered my next question too, which was we talked about Japan. How do you think about the strategic importance of Australia, Canada, Europe? But maybe if you could unpack that a little bit, are there sort of other -- and then, some of the investors' kind of question, too, I mean, Cboe is very much an exciting and rapidly growing index options story, retail trading story. How do you think about the strategic importance of those other geographies where maybe in Europe, there's much lower levels of penetration of retail and options activity and things like that?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Understood. Maybe on the flip side, when you were at the CME, you oversaw a period of pretty meaningful consolidation. How does that experience inform how you think about M&A opportunities at Cboe? Are there any obvious sort of capabilities that would make sense to bolster inorganically? And how else are you thinking about capital allocation in that vein?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Maybe just one more question on M&A. We've seen a number of exchange peers move much more in the direction of recurring revenue, software-like businesses. How do you think about what may make sense for Cboe? It feels like, obviously, on the Options side, the transaction-based business has been growing very nicely. At the same time, are there things you can do on the data side, things that maybe get you closer to retail, things that, I don't know, give you more analytics capabilities, things like that? How do you think about -- or is that part of your consideration, the mix? Or is it more, does it meet ROIC hurdles, does it fit strategically, that sort of thing?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Got it. Maybe before my last kind of question on the P&L profile of the company, one more question on the transaction-based side. We didn't talk about this earlier, but outside of the index options business, on the multiply-listed side, on the cash equity side in the US, it feels like there's been pickup in competition more recently. Investors are really scrutinizing fee rates versus market share. How do you think about the importance of REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 08, 2025 / 2:30PM, CBOE.Z - Cboe Global Markets Inc at Barclays Global Financial Services Conference volume, revenue growth, kind of prioritize -- and how would you describe the current state of competition in the sort of more competitive exchange businesses that you have?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Got it. Maybe one final question on the P&L profile. So your -- Cboe's --

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : So your margins are among the highest of any publicly-traded company, and you run a very high incremental margin business that's growing. So how do you think about balancing margin expansion, if any, with sort of investing for growth? It always surprised me even a couple of years ago, investors would complain about the very high rapid rate of operating cost growth despite having 60%-plus margins. But how do you think about that trade-off?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Great. We're nearly out of time, so we can leave it there. But, Craig -- REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 08, 2025 / 2:30PM, CBOE.Z - Cboe Global Markets Inc at Barclays Global Financial Services Conference

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Yes. What a pleasure to have you. And hopefully, we have you back here next year. We'll see --