Chicago: Trading across global futures and options markets returned to normal on Friday after a major outage at CME Group forced a shutdown that lasted several hours. The problem was caused by a cooling system failure at a data center used by the exchange, which led to rising temperatures and an automatic shutdown of key systems.

The interruption affected a wide range of markets including stock index futures, foreign exchange, commodities such as oil and gold, and US Treasury futures. Many traders were unable to execute orders or view updated prices, creating uncertainty in several financial centers.

The outage began early in the US trading day and continued through the morning. According to CME, the issue was linked to a data center operated by CyrusOne. When temperatures inside the facility climbed to unsafe levels, equipment powering CME’s electronic trading platform was automatically taken offline to prevent damage.

CME began restoring services in stages. Currency trading and major stock index futures returned first, followed by bond and commodity markets. By early afternoon in London, most systems were back online. The company later confirmed that normal trading had resumed across its main platforms.

The disruption has raised concerns about the resilience of financial infrastructure, particularly because CME is one of the world’s largest derivatives exchanges. Analysts said the incident showed how dependent global markets are on a small number of technology providers.

Regulators in the United States have been notified. Market observers expect a review into how similar disruptions can be avoided and whether backup systems need to be strengthened.

Despite the outage, markets stabilised after reopening. However, traders and analysts said the event may lead to new discussions about the risks posed by single points of failure in modern financial systems.