(Corrects analyst name in paragraph 4)
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Exchange operator CME Group said on Friday that some markets had reopened after global futures were thrown into chaos when the world’s largest exchange operator suffered one of its longest outages in years.
The halt caused by a data centre cooling issue stopped trading across stocks, bonds, commodities and currencies. Trading had restarted by 1335 GMT after having been knocked out for over 11 hours, according to LSEG data.
QUOTES:
MIKHAIL ZVEREV, PORTFOLIO MANAGER, AMATI GLOBAL INVESTORS, LONDON:
“This isn’t just a trading issue, it’s a reminder that data centres have become essential infrastructure and they are not 100% reliable, they have capacity issues.
“We’re pragmatic optimists on AI, we’ve invested in the AI supply chain.
“My anticipation is that life goes on but everybody will have yet another look at their data centre arrangements and invest more in ensuring reliable supply because the importance of data center uptime is higher and higher.”
KARL SCHAMOTTA, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, CORPAY, TORONTO:
“Currency markets are taking this morning’s CME outage in their stride – functionality seems to be returning, and the EBS platform that handles FX trades is now running normally. Liquidity remains thin given that most participants executed month-end trades ahead of yesterday’s Thanksgiving holiday, and most major pairs are seeing choppy, but range-bound trading action with technical levels holding firm. Markets could hit some turbulence later this morning if benchmark prices remain muddled, but it looks as if that’s a relatively unlikely scenario.”
JOE SALUZZI, CO-MANAGER OF TRADING, THEMIS TRADING, CHATHAM, NEW JERSEY:
“This is such a strange day, in that it’s always very, very light volume. If there was to be a glitch day, today’s probably a good day to have it.”
ALEX MORRIS, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, F/M INVESTMENTS, WASHINGTON :
“Of all the 252 trading days of the year this could have happened, this probably was the luckiest for the CME. The rolls from one contract to another all happened earlier in the week and the trading volumes today, because it’s a half-day for markets, everything was sleepy anyway.”
“It’s hard to compete” with the liquidity and market dominance of CME-traded futures contracts, he said. Still, “a lot of people at the CME are being called in and hauled in” on what might have been a slow day or a day off for them to do more testing of the systems.
(Reporting by finance and markets team; Editing by Lananh Nguyen, Alison Williams and Nia Williams)
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