CME Group Inc., the US’s largest derivatives exchanges, is joining Wall Street in shrinking its ranks.
(Bloomberg) — CME Group Inc., the US’s largest derivatives exchanges, is joining Wall Street in shrinking its ranks.
The Chicago-based company has cut about 100 people this week, or 3% of staff, according to a company spokeswoman. The layoffs come even after wild price swings in everything from equities to commodities spurred record trading volumes last year.
Expenses across the finance industry have been under tight scrutiny as investors look for firms to keep costs down at the same time they grow revenue. Wall Street’s biggest banks whittled down their ranks by about 21,000 people in the first six months of the year as they rejiggered workforces amid a slump in dealmaking and capital markets activity.
Some firms are turning to technology and machine learning to replace in-person roles, lowering their spending on headcount.
“The company plans to reallocate the majority of those positions to new, cloud-focused technology roles,” CME spokeswoman Laurie Bischel, said in emailed response to Bloomberg questions. “Overall headcount will remain about the same.”
Trading on CME jumped 19% last year to an average of 23.3 million contracts a day, an all-time high. Volumes were driven by growth in equity index and foreign-exchange products.
In a statement earlier this year, Chief Executive Officer Terry Duffy described 2022 as “the best year in our history.”
(Updates with details throughout.)
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