Dear Valued CME Customer:

As 2004 draws to a close, we would like to take this opportunity to thank you for doing business at CME. We have enjoyed a great year, and we could not have achieved such success without you.

We have worked very hard to create value for all of our shareholders this year. We helped customers free up more than $1.7 billion in capital and performance bonds as a result of our historic clearing and transaction processing agreement with the Chicago Board of Trade. We also reduced our Class A share requirement for our clearing member firms, thereby freeing up more than $700 million in capital, based on our current stock price. We significantly enhanced trading and implied pricing functionality on our CME^® Globex^® trading platform. We broadened distribution to our markets by establishing six telecommunications hubs in Europe and announced plans to implement our first hub in Asia in 2005. Further, we introduced more flexible membership programs so that our customers around the world can benefit from member pricing incentives.

All of these efforts are designed to reinforce the idea that, at CME, customers mean everything. We hope you will continue to give us your feedback and, in the year ahead, we plan to continue to provide you with the low-cost and highly liquid products - and superior level of service - that you expect from CME.

We wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous new year!

Sincerely,

Terrence A. Duffy	Craig S. Donohue	Phupinder Gill
Chairman of the Board	Chief Executive Officer	President & Chief Operating Officer