CME Restarts Most Operations After Hours-Long Outage

CME +0.11%

(Bloomberg) -- The Chicago Mercantile Exchange began restoring most trading operations after an hours-long technical outage that crippled key parts of financial markets.

The exchange’s Globex Futures & Options markets, which handles futures, options, and commodities trading and accounts for 90% of CME Group’s volume, opened at 8:30 a.m. New York time, with trades reported in US futures and options. Volume remained light across many markets at the open.

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CME Direct, a platform used to trade some of the company’s markets, was still unavailable, according to an alert shortly before the exchange said that all its markets were open.

The halt had gone on longer than a similar outage due to a technical error back in 2019 and underscores the reach of CME Group and its Globex electronic trading platform. It triggered widespread frustration as market participants contemplated the prospect of a lost trading session for millions of contracts tracking the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq 100 on one of the world’s largest derivatives exchanges.

The trading halt was caused by a cooling system malfunction at a data center in the Chicago area, according to facility operator CyrusOne. Engineering teams had restarted several chillers and deployed temporary cooling equipment, a spokesperson said.

Most US markets were closed on Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday, and are due to reopen later for a shortened trading day. There is limited news expected on Friday with no economic data scheduled for release in the US, and no expected Federal Reserve speakers ahead of a blackout period leading up to their anticipated December interest rate decision.

With volumes across foreign-exchange and bond markets subdued following the US holiday, a Bloomberg gauge of the dollar and cash Treasuries traded steadily after activity in CME Globex futures and options resumed.

The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 3.99%, while the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose less than 0.1%. The Canadian dollar led gains versus the greenback in the Group-of-10 after a reading of Canada’s third-quarter economic growth beat estimates.

Lost Liquidity

Gold saw erratic moves in early London trading, with the gap between bids and offers briefly surging amid thin liquidity. US crude and palm oil on the Bursa Malaysia exchange were also affected. Others reported that volumes had shifted onto alternative platforms as liquidity and price transparency evaporated.

November has been a volatile month for equities, with the S&P 500 slumping as much as 4.7% amid concerns about the path of Fed rate cuts and valuations of artificial intelligence-linked stocks. The index has clawed back those losses and volatility has been falling all week, back near October lows. The US stock benchmark is close to erasing its monthly drop with one more session left before the final month of the year.

Bourses operated by CME include the Chicago Board of Trade, the New York Mercantile Exchange and the Commodity Exchange. CME also has a stake in other exchanges, including the Gulf Mercantile Exchange, which said in a notice to the market that it had also seen trade halted due to the cooling issue.

--With assistance from Ruth Carson, Serene Cheong, Yongchang Chin, Hallie Gu, Julien Ponthus, Alex Longley, Blaise Robinson, James Hirai, Weilun Soon, Michael Msika and Jack Ryan.

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