CME Outage Freezes Key Futures Markets After Cooling Failure

TLDR:

• CME outage halted futures and forex trading as cooling failure cut live market data feeds.
• Frozen prices affected key benchmarks including crude, gold, Treasuries, and equity futures.
• Brokers removed products and shifted to internal pricing models due to unreliable data.
• Market desks expect volatility as trading resumes after the Thanksgiving holiday slowdown.

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The CME outage halted a wide range of futures and currency products during early Asian hours. Traders saw live prices stop across commodities, equity benchmarks, and major forex pairs. 

Activity slowed as brokers withdrew products with no reliable feeds. The disruption followed a cooling system failure at CyrusOne data centers.

CME Outage Stalls Market Activity Across Futures And Forex

Trading paused across CME’s major futures contracts after the cooling issue triggered an immediate platform halt. Reuters reported that markets saw frozen prices for crude, gold, Treasuries, palm oil, and equity futures. 

The EBS forex platform was also offline, cutting access to real-time quotes on euro dollar and dollar yen pairs. Wu Blockchain relayed that quotes stopped updating across the board.

Traders in Asia said the notice arrived shortly before 0300 GMT as desks prepared for thin liquidity after the Thanksgiving break. Reuters noted that spot forex traders shifted activity to alternative venues, though futures desks had fewer options. 

Brokers operated with limited visibility and avoided pricing contracts with missing data. CMC Markets removed several commodities and relied on internal calculations for remaining instruments.

Market desks cited rising uncertainty as the outage extended into the morning session. 

The report added that firms saw elevated risk in maintaining two-way prices in illiquid conditions. Traders expected volatility once markets reopened with delayed price discovery. CME stated that it aimed to resolve the issue in the near term.

CMC Markets said the outage created added strain during an already slow post-holiday session. The firm saw demand to transact at month-end but lacked the data required to manage exposures. 

Reuters reported that several brokers avoided offering products entirely due to the missing feeds. The event arrived during a volatile period for global markets, intensifying caution among desks.

Cooling Failure At CyrusOne Data Centers Triggered The Halt

CME linked the outage to a cooling failure at CyrusOne facilities supporting its infrastructure. The report noted that CyrusOne did not immediately comment on the incident. 

The data center operator maintains more than 55 facilities across the US, Europe, and Japan. Its systems support critical exchange and trading workloads.

The outage followed earlier technical disruptions seen across global exchanges in recent years. Reuters referenced past issues at LSEG and the Swiss exchange that briefly interrupted trading. 

CME also faced an electronic trading halt in 2014, sending traders back to floor activity. The latest event placed renewed focus on infrastructure reliability during high-frequency trading sessions.

Asia desks said the outage slowed what was already a quiet post-holiday environment. 

IG’s Tony Sycamore told Reuters that interest to transact remained high despite limited activity. The disruption reduced market depth and forced traders to adjust execution strategies. With US markets opening for a shortened session, liquidity was expected to remain low.

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