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]

Group 1 - U.S. stock futures experienced an increase, with S&P 500 futures up 0.2%, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rising 0.1%, and Nasdaq futures pointing 0.3% higher following the restoration of trading after a significant outage [1][2] - The outage was caused by a cooling issue at the CME Group data center, which affected trading for several hours [1] - CME Group's EBS foreign exchange platform and BrokerTec U.S. Actives and BrokerTec EU markets reopened earlier in the morning, with futures and options markets set to reopen at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time [2]