CME Group Halts Global Trading After Cooling System Failure Disrupts Markets
According to CNBC, CME Group halted trading across foreign exchange, commodities, and stock futures on November 29, 2025. The outage lasted more than 11 hours. A cooling system failure at CyrusOne data centers in the Chicago area caused the disruption.
Trading stopped around 03:00 GMT. Markets remained frozen until approximately 13:35 GMT. The shutdown affected benchmark futures for West Texas Intermediate crude, Nasdaq 100, Nikkei, palm oil, and gold. CME's EBS foreign exchange platform also went offline. Reuters reports that the outage was one of the longest in years for the exchange operator.
CyrusOne confirmed its CHI1 data center facility experienced a chiller plant failure affecting multiple cooling units. The company deployed temporary cooling equipment and specialized contractors to restore service.
Why This Matters
CME Group processes 26.3 million contracts daily. Bloomberg notes that about one trillion dollars in notional value trades daily in E-mini S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures alone. The platform handles contracts covering trillions of dollars across multiple asset classes.
Traders were unable to close positions or access price data during the outage. Many brokers pulled products from their platforms. Options on the S&P 500 representing roughly 600 billion dollars in notional value were set to expire that day. Market makers typically use CME futures to hedge these positions. Without access to futures markets, liquidity disappeared and trading became difficult.
The timing fell on a shortened trading session after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. Trading volumes were already expected to be light. Several market participants noted the disruption could have been worse on a more active trading day.
Industry Implications
The outage raises questions about infrastructure reliability at major exchanges. Reuters reports that 2024 saw multiple exchange disruptions. Switzerland's SIX stock exchange experienced one of its worst outages in July 2024. LSEG Group's data services suffered disruptions in July 2024. The New York Stock Exchange had a glitch in June 2024 that triggered massive swings in major stock prices.
CME is the world's largest exchange operator by market value. The company offers benchmark products across rates, equities, metals, energy, cryptocurrencies, and agriculture. Both the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed they were monitoring the situation.
This outage lasted longer than a previous three-hour disruption CME experienced in 2019. Industry analysts questioned whether the company's contingency plans were adequate. CME has been investing in infrastructure, including a partnership with Google Cloud announced in 2021. The company relies on multiple data center providers including Equinix.
Further Reading
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