2025.11.29
This article has 988 words and an estimated reading time of about 2 minutes.
Author | First Financial Wei Wei
At around 8:30 AM Eastern Time on November 28, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) promptly resumed trading operations. Previously, CME experienced a technical failure that restricted trading across multiple financial markets in Asia and Europe for approximately 10 hours.
Reportedly, the Globex futures and options market opened at 8:30 AM, which is responsible for futures, options, and commodity trading, accounting for 90% of CME Group’s trading volume. However, many markets still saw low trading volumes, with traders noting delays in Treasury futures and options trading linked to the secured overnight financing rate.
According to First Financial, Goldman Sachs traders mentioned in their trading notes that due to the technical failure at CME, there were concerns that month-end operations would be affected. Fortunately, Treasury futures successfully opened at 8:30 AM Eastern Time. This month’s rebalancing was initially expected to bring about $6 billion into equities, but the actual stock market performance remained robust.
Nitin Pahwa, head of emerging market credit trading at Goldman Sachs, stated that although the overall market remained firm and ETF demand was evident during the session, the technical failure at CME limited trading volumes.
Additionally, investment bank traders mentioned to First Financial that due to ongoing system issues at CME, futures were unable to open at times, and Treasury trading was not smooth, with bid-ask spreads widening significantly. For instance, the 20-year Treasury futures saw a spread of 11 ticks (the smallest price movement unit), while the 30-year Treasury futures experienced a spread of 7 ticks.
Moreover, Bloomberg’s Global Interest Rate Prediction (WIRP) captured data on overnight index swaps (OIS) and Eurodollar futures, showing probabilities of a rate cut in December at -88% and -83%, respectively, indicating a significant deviation.
“However, our trading department did not observe corresponding real trading flows, so the reasons remain unclear. Starting this Saturday, Federal Reserve officials will enter a quiet period. Personally, I believe the market’s pricing of the December policy path may continue to adjust,” the trader stated.
As of 11 AM Eastern Time, with market order restored, the bond yield curve showed a tendency towards a “bear steepener” rise. CME confirmed at 8:50 AM that all its markets had resumed normal trading.
This approximately 10-hour suspension raised concerns among market participants, as traders found themselves unable to trade contracts tracking the S&P 500 index and various other assets before the month-end. The outage was attributed to a cooling issue at a key data center in the Chicago area.
“I woke up thinking my Wi-Fi was down,” said Ritik Katte, Chief Investment Officer at London-based MCD Capital.
This interruption lasted three times longer than a similar outage caused by a technical error in 2019, highlighting the influence of CME Group and its Globex electronic trading platform.
WeChat Editor | Xia Mu
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