CME Group Suspends Trading Due to Cooling System Failure

CME Group has announced a temporary halt to trading across its Globex platform, impacting various contracts related to stocks and cryptocurrencies. This pause is the result of a "cooling issue at CyrusOne data centres," as stated on their official website.

Key Takeaways

CME Group has halted trading on its Globex platform due to a cooling issue at data centers.
Traders describe the outage as a significant inconvenience, with impacts on various futures and options contracts.
Bitcoin experienced a slight drop to $90,896, despite a positive weekly performance driven by a large options expiry.

CME trading halt

The CME team communicated, “Support is working to resolve the issue in the near term and will notify clients with Pre-Open updates as soon as they become available.”

CyrusOne manages over 55 data centres throughout the US, Europe, and Japan, according to Reuters. The outage has disrupted all futures and options contracts on the Globex platform.

Trader Reactions to CME Outage: A "Nightmare"

According to an anonymous trader speaking to Reuters, this halt is being described as a "nightmare."

Just before the trading interruption, CME Group informed traders, affecting all futures and options contracts, including major currency pairs.

On social media platform X, one user urged the firm to cancel losses related to any trades that were stalled.

Moreover, traders noted that contracts for both crude oil and palm oil ceased trading during this disruption. Crypto traders were also significantly impacted as Bitcoin and Ethereum futures on CME went offline during the halt.

The timing of the trading suspension was particularly inconvenient for Asian markets, where liquidity was already low due to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.

Market analyst Tony Sycamore pointed out, “It’s been a very slow day here in Asia after the Thanksgiving holiday and this hasn’t helped at all, especially since there is interest in transacting at the end of what has been a volatile month.”

Bitcoin Dips Below $91K, Despite Weekly Gains

In related news, Bitcoin has experienced a minor decline of 0.55%, trading at $90,896 within the last 24 hours, marking a contrast to its 8.32% gain over the week. This slight drop is attributed to a $13.4 billion BTC options expiry squeeze.

On November 28, around 147,000 BTC options expired, leaning towards bearish positions.

Additionally, Bitcoin tested the $91,800 resistance level three times within 24 hours but failed to maintain it, leading to automated sell orders. At the time of reporting, Bitcoin was trading at $91,024, based on data from CoinMarketCap.