Cooling Failure Halts CME Trading Worldwide

CME Group experienced a significant trading halt across its Globex platform due to a cooling system issue at CyrusOne data centers. The disruption affected a wide array of financial instruments, impacting futures and options contracts for stocks, major currency pairs, commodities like crude oil and palm oil, and notably, cryptocurrency futures including Bitcoin and Ethereum. This incident created considerable distress for traders, with some describing the situation as a 'nightmare' and others appealing for losses to be canceled.

The trading suspension occurred at an inopportune time, coinciding with the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, leading to already thin liquidity. Market analysts noted that the halt further dampened activity on what was already a slow trading day in Asia, especially given the volatility seen in the preceding weeks. The interruption meant that active trading sessions were severely hampered, preventing transactions at a time when interest was present.

In a separate but related market movement, Bitcoin saw a slight decrease of 0.55% to $90,896 in the 24 hours leading up to this report, despite an 8.32% gain over the past week. This dip was partly attributed to a large Bitcoin options expiry on November 28, which favored bearish positions. Bitcoin had repeatedly failed to surpass the $91,800 resistance level, triggering automated sell orders and pushing its price down.