Cooper Investors Global Equities Fund's Investment Thesis for CME Group (CME)

Cooper Investors, an investment management firm, released its “Cooper Investors Global Equities Fund (Unhedged)” third-quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund returned -0.04% in the third quarter, compared to a 6.42% return for the MSCI AC World Index Net Divs in Australian Dollars. However, the fund returned a rolling 12-month return of 18.0% post fees. Since the portfolio structure is primarily not correlated with the index, its returns should not move in line with the index. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025.

In its third-quarter 2025 investor letter, Cooper Investors Global Equities Fund highlighted stocks such as CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME). CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) operates the leading financial exchange for the trading of futures and options on futures contracts. The one-month return for CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) was -2.31%, and its shares gained 14.43% over the last 52 weeks. On December 05, 2025, CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) stock closed at $270.87 per share, with a market capitalization of $97.676 billion.

Cooper Investors Global Equities Fund stated the following regarding CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) in its third quarter 2025 investor letter:

“The need for risk management has never been more important – in every market and every corner of the world. Geopolitical and economic risks continue to accelerate”– Terrence Duffy, CEO of CME Group.

CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) is the largest global derivatives exchange operator. The Fund has been invested in CME since early 2024, having also owned the business from 2016 to 2021. Given its royalty like features, CME sits in the Real Assets and Income capital pool of the portfolio.

CME has been led by CEO Terry Du y since 2016. Terry’s association with CME spans multiple decades. While bartending through college in the early 1980s he frequently served traders; impressed by his quick mind, one of these traders encouraged Terry to join him on the oor of the exchange. Terry’s family was of modest means and needed to mortgage their home to raise the $50,000 required to buy a CME membership. This was a risk they almost came to regret when in the rst months of his trading career Terry misheard an order resulting in a large nancial loss. Fortunately, his mentor stepped in to provide a guarantee and Terry committed to three years of working multiple jobs to pay o his losses. This lesson, around approaching risk and what to do when things don’t go as expected, has stuck with him ever since..." (Click here to read the full text)

CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 77 hedge fund portfolios held CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) at the end of the third quarter, which was 75 in the previous quarter. CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) reported revenue of $1.5 billion in Q3 2025, down 3% from the very strong third quarter in 2024. While we acknowledge the potential of CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

In another article, we covered CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) and shared a bullish thesis on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 2025 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.