CME Group Halts Trading Across 5 Major Markets After Data Center Glitch
CME Group, one of the world’s largest derivatives exchanges, suspended trading across major asset classes following a critical systems...
Quick overview
- CME Group suspended trading across major asset classes due to a critical systems failure at its CyrusOne data center, impacting currencies, stock futures, and commodities.
- The outage disrupted trading activity just before 0300 GMT, leaving traders without updated benchmarks for key indices and currency pairs.
- Despite the outage, CME has shown strong growth, recently partnering with Google Cloud and announcing new futures contracts for XRP and Solana.
- CME's operational performance remains robust, with shares rising over 20% year-to-date, highlighting the importance of reliable infrastructure.
CME Group, one of the world’s largest derivatives exchanges, suspended trading across major asset classes following a critical systems failure at its CyrusOne data center. The outage affected currencies, stock futures, and commodities, freezing activity amid post-holiday market volatility. The disruption was reported just before 0300 GMT, leaving traders without updated benchmarks for the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and key currency pairs.
CME confirmed that its support teams are actively working to restore systems. “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,” the firm stated. The halt also impacted EBS, a widely used electronic FX platform, preventing quotes for major dollar/euro and dollar/yen pairs from updating.
Market Impact and Trader Response
The outage amplified uncertainty in already thin post-Thanksgiving liquidity. Analysts noted that market participants seeking to transact faced heightened challenges.
BREAKING:
CME just halted ALL futures trading because of a cooling failure at their data center.Read that again… the entire derivatives market froze because a server room got too hot.
This is the same market that moves trillions, sets global prices, hedges entire economies.… pic.twitter.com/2o7WrbAxa7
— Manpreet Kailon (@preetkailon) November 28, 2025
Key market effects included:
- Suspension of futures, options, and foreign exchange trades on Globex.
- Lack of refreshed pricing for S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indices.
- FX liquidity freeze, particularly for USD/EUR and USD/JPY pairs.
- Increased volatility risk in a month already marked by swings in global markets.
Tony Sycamore, an analyst at IG Markets, said the halt “hasn’t helped at all, especially on a day when there was real interest to transact.”
CME’s Ongoing Infrastructure and Growth
Despite the outage, CME has demonstrated robust growth across its trading platforms. Earlier this year, the exchange partnered with Google Cloud to explore tokenization and ledger innovations aimed at improving asset management efficiency.
In addition, CME recently announced two new spot-quoted futures contracts for XRP and Solana, scheduled to go live on December 15 pending regulatory approval. These contracts are expected to provide institutions with flexible hedging options and lower margin requirements.
The platform’s operational performance has contributed to a strong stock trajectory, with shares rising over 20% year-to-date and five-year returns approaching 90%. Record volumes in crypto and U.S. Treasury trading further highlight CME’s resilience, even as temporary system failures remind the market of the critical importance of reliable infrastructure.
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