Stock futures and options trading slowly came back online Friday after a widespread outage on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, triggered by a cooling system failure at one of its key data centers. The disruption rippled across global markets before activity gradually normalized.
Trading in stock futures and options fully reopened at 8:30 a.m. ET, while other services were restored in stages. FactSet data showed that bonds and metals resumed trading following the pause, and individual equities continued to trade in the premarket. “All CME Group markets are open and trading,” a CME spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Operations stabilize after global halt
CME representatives confirmed earlier that markets were halted due to a cooling issue at CyrusOne’s data center, cautioning that price movements in affected contracts could take time to normalize. The interruption impacted Globex futures and options, foreign exchange platform EBS, and BMD markets. EBS reopened at 7 a.m. ET – about 90 minutes after BrokerTec EU, a CME subsidiary, resumed operations.
As the world’s largest exchange operator by market value, CME trades futures and options across asset classes including agriculture, energy, metals and equity indices — making Friday’s disruption widely felt.
Cooling system failure at Cyrusone facility
CyrusOne, headquartered in Dallas, confirmed the root cause was a chiller plant failure at its CHI1 facility in the Chicago area. “On November 27, our CHI1 facility experienced a chiller plant failure affecting multiple cooling units,” a company spokesperson said.
Engineering teams and specialized contractors have restarted several chillers at limited capacity and deployed temporary cooling systems to stabilize the site. The firm said it is working “around the clock” to restore full operations and remains in direct communication with affected clients. “We apologize for any disruption this has caused,” the spokesperson added.
Outage timing minimized market impact
Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth, noted that the outage came during one of the lightest trading periods of the year – the day after Thanksgiving. “It appears as though they are gradually starting to restore some operations,” he said. “All told this could have been much worse.”
For some global traders, however, the timing proved more disruptive. Futures trader Emir Syazwan of Ninefold Trading Co. in Kuala Lumpur said he spent much of the afternoon on the phone with his broker as the outage persisted. With the halt occurring late in the week, shortly after a major U.S. holiday and during the early morning for U.S. markets, Syazwan said Asian and European traders felt the brunt of the interruption.
Questions over market structure and price discovery
Syazwan warned that any lasting distortions will depend on how quickly the issue is fully resolved. “It’s inconvenient, but it’s not unprecedented,” he said, adding that such events can influence market structure and price discovery. He also noted that futures markets have been trading in an unusually tight range since Nov. 26, reflecting cautious price action until systems are fully restored.
This is not the first time CME’s electronic trading has faced disruption. In 2014, technical issues halted some trading on its Globex platform, particularly agricultural contracts. Last year, Switzerland’s SIX exchange also temporarily halted equities, bond and ETF trading after experiencing data dissemination problems.
Syazwan said his own trades were unaffected. “I had already anticipated the major markets – especially the U.S. indices – to consolidate until the start of next year, so I went on early holiday at the beginning of the month,” he said.
