Commodity Futures Trading Halted After Data Center Glitch

Trading of futures and options on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange was halted for several hours due to a data center glitch, disrupting trade across foreign exchange, bonds, equities, and commodities, Srinidhi Ragavendran and Anuradha Raghu reported for Bloomberg News.

The disruption underscores the centrality of CME and its Globex electronic trading platform and has triggered widespread frustration. (Photo: Walsh Group) 

The impact of the malfunction across a broad range of markets — from crude oil to Treasuries and S&P 500 futures — has already surpassed the duration of a similar hours-long outage in 2019.

The disruption underscores the centrality of CME and its Globex electronic trading platform and has triggered widespread frustration as market participants contemplated the prospect of losing an entire trading session.

“Due to a cooling issue at CyrusOne data centers, our markets are currently halted,” a CME Group spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

“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.”

EBS, a platform used in foreign exchange, was also affected, traders said, along with contracts such as gasoline and palm oil traded on the Bursa Malaysia exchange via CME’s electronic platform. The most recent trades for the West Texas Intermediate oil contract were logged at 10:47 a.m. Singapore time.