CME halts global trading after data center breakdown

The world’s largest derivatives exchange operator Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) hit a technical failure on Friday, November 26, freezing key benchmark prices for stock indices, commodities, and government bonds.

The outage hit CME group due to a cooling issue at its CyrusOne data centers. In a statement, the CME confirmed the problem had forced a halt to all its markets.

The failure left an immediate and widespread impact, leaving traders and brokers without live prices for important financial instruments.

Futures contracts for benchmarks including WTI crude oil, U.S. 10-year Treasury notes, the S&P 500, and Nasdaq 100 were frozen.

Services on Electronic Broking Services (EBS) were also halted impacting trading for currency pairs like euro/dollar.

According to Reuters, the outage left market participants “flying blind” with many brokers pulling products from trading due to the inability to price them accurately.

Christopher Forbes of CMC Markets highlighted the unprecedented nature of the widespread outage, calling it a “pain in the arse” and showing concern of the "unnecessary risk” of pricing without live data.

Analysts have also warned that the event can lead to increased volatility once markets reopen as CME is a cornerstone of the financial system, with average daily derivatives volume reaching 26.3 million contracts in October.

While the outage occurred during a period of typically lower liquidity following the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, it froze a primary source of price discovery for assets globally.