Trading across major futures and options markets resumed on Friday after a cooling-system failure at a Chicago-area data center forced the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to halt activity for hours, disrupting traders across Asia, Europe and the U.S.
Stock futures and options reopened fully at 8:30 a.m. ET, with bonds, metals and foreign-exchange platforms gradually coming back online. “All CME Group markets are open and trading,” the exchange said in a statement, though several traders reported continued delays in Treasury-linked contracts after the restart.
The outage originated at the CyrusOne CHI1 facility, where a chiller plant failure on 27 November affected multiple cooling units. CyrusOne said engineering teams and specialised mechanical contractors were working “around the clock” to restore full cooling capacity, adding that temporary cooling equipment had been deployed to supplement damaged systems. The operator apologised for the disruption and said it was in direct contact with all affected customers.
The halt lasted roughly ten hours, impacting CME’s Globex Futures & Options system — which accounts for around 90% of the group’s total volume — as well as EBS foreign-exchange markets and BMD derivatives. EBS reopened at 7 a.m. ET, shortly after BrokerTec EU markets resumed trading.
Market participants across multiple regions reported the abrupt loss of access. In London, managers shifted into cash Treasuries in thinner, wider markets. Kuala Lumpur-based traders said the outage had affected those active in Asian and European sessions more directly, given the timing relative to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday slowdown.
Several investors noted the difficulty of executing month-end rolls or adjusting positions. One portfolio manager described the combination of “month-end, day after Thanksgiving, CME down” as “not an ideal combo,” while another said liquidity and price transparency had temporarily evaporated on core futures contracts.
The incident underscored the extent to which global derivatives markets depend on a small number of critical data-center hubs. CME’s Aurora, Illinois complex — now operated by CyrusOne — has served as the exchange’s main digital hub for nearly two decades and remains a focal point for high-frequency traders who colocate equipment to minimise latency. A similar disruption in 2019 lasted a third as long.
CME said its disaster-recovery plan includes the option to move to a New York-area data center, but the exchange chose to restart operations from Aurora based on early assessments that the cooling issue would be resolved quickly.
Some traders said volumes had shifted temporarily to other venues as liquidity dried up. Others observed that price action had already been unusually narrow since late Wednesday and would likely remain contained until full stability returned. Still, given the holiday-thinned conditions, strategists suggested the timing may have minimised the broader market impact. “All told this could have been much worse,” one said.
By midday Friday, most operations were restored, though CME Direct — a platform used for several of the company’s markets — remained offline during the early stages of the recovery.
