Core Insights - The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) experienced a significant outage that halted trading of futures and options, impacting multiple markets and contracts worth trillions of dollars [1][2] - The outage lasted for over nine hours, with services gradually resuming after the initial alert [1] - The incident highlights the critical role CME plays in global markets, as traders sought alternatives during the disruption [3] Trading Impact - The outage disrupted trading in S&P 500 futures, EBS foreign exchange platform, Treasuries, and US crude oil [2] - Traders reported difficulties in pricing equity index options and expressed concerns over liquidity when seeking alternatives to CME [3] Market Statistics - In October, CME averaged over 26 million derivatives contracts traded daily [3] - On November 20, open interest in CME's US Treasury futures and options reached an all-time high of 35.1 million contracts, with approximately $1 trillion of notional value traded daily in E-mini S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures [4] Historical Context - Exchange outages have become more frequent, with technology issues affecting pricing across global platforms [5] - Previous incidents include a June 2024 glitch at the New York Stock Exchange that erroneously halted trading on about 40 stocks and a disruption in Nasdaq premarket trading earlier that year [5] - The London Stock Exchange Group also faced multiple outages at the end of 2023 [6]

LIVE Markets Open Higher to End a Volatile Month Last Updated: 1 hour ago Futures on the S&P 500 were up 0.2%, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 0.1% and Nasdaq futures pointed 0.3% higher. CME group said its EBS foreign exchange platform and its BrokerTec U.S. Actives and BrokerTec EU markets–both related to fixed income–reopened earlier in the morning. The exchange operator added that futures and options markets would reopen at 8.30 a.m. Eastern time. Topics Memberships Subscribe to Barron's Stock ...