CME Group Halts Trading Across Major Markets After Data Centre Cooling Failure

Exchange operator CME Group temporarily halted trading across its major markets on Friday following a cooling system failure at CyrusOne data centres, triggering a widespread outage that froze key global benchmarks. The disruption affected trading in currencies, stock futures, commodities, and all futures and options contracts on the Globex platform, according to a statement issued by the exchange.

CME confirmed the issue in an advisory, saying, “Due to a cooling issue at CyrusOne data centres, our markets are currently halted. Support is working to resolve the issue in the near term and will advise clients of Pre-Open details as soon as they are available.” CyrusOne did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on the incident, leaving market participants searching for clarity as trading screens went dark.

The halt extended to CME’s EBS electronic foreign exchange platform, one of the world’s most widely used systems for major currency pairs including EUR/USD and USD/JPY. Market participants said they were notified shortly before 0300 GMT, and price feeds for products such as S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures stopped updating after 0344 GMT, according to LSEG data.

For traders, the outage came at an especially inconvenient time. One trader, who declined to be named due to media restrictions, described the situation bluntly as “a nightmare.” The disruption hit during an already subdued Asian session following the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, compounding frustration for those looking to execute trades at the end of a volatile month.

IG Markets analyst Tony Sycamore noted that interest in transacting remained strong despite the quieter session, adding that the sudden halt “hasn’t helped at all.” As CME works to bring systems back online, global markets continue to await updates on when normal trading activity will resume.