US stocks rose on Friday as the Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 each gained 0.2% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 124 points, or 0.3%, even as a data-centre failure briefly halted futures and options trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
The disruption occurred during a historically low-volume, post-Thanksgiving session, raising the potential for sharper-than-usual intraday swings.
The outage was caused by a “cooling issue” at a CyrusOne data centre supporting CME Group operations, temporarily halting trading in key futures, options and foreign-exchange markets.
While equities continued to trade in the premarket, activity across some of the world’s most important derivatives markets came to a standstill.
CME restores markets following halt
CME said all of its markets were open again after trading gradually resumed.
Stock futures and options reopened fully at 8:30 a.m. ET, with bonds and metals also returning online.
Services continued to be restored throughout the morning.
EBS reopened at 7 a.m. ET, about 90 minutes after its BrokerTec EU subsidiary resumed trading.
The disruption introduced an unusual layer of volatility to an already thinly traded session, with Wall Street returning from the holiday for a shortened day that will close at 1 p.m. ET.
November ends on a weak note
Friday also marked the final trading day of November — a month in which a pullback in technology shares weighed heavily on broader indices.
Concerns about the long-term profitability of AI-driven business models and elevated valuations across large-cap tech names cooled sentiment.
The Dow and S&P 500 were set to snap six consecutive months of gains, each ending the month slightly lower.
The Nasdaq was down about 2% in November, ending a seven-month winning streak.
Yet the week told a different story. A sharp tech rebound helped push the Dow up more than 2% for the week, while the S&P 500 rose roughly 3% and the Nasdaq gained 4%, putting all three on track for their strongest week since June.
David Morrison, analyst at Trade Nation, said:
Despite this week’s rebound, November has still been a challenging month. Elevated valuations, particularly across tech and those at the forefront of the Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) trade, have tempered enthusiasm. As things stand, the S&P 500 and Dow sit marginally lower for November, while the NASDAQ is around 2% below where it closed out October. Only the small cap, domestically focused Russell 2000 looks as if it will post a positive November.”
Market sentiment remains anchored to expectations for a December rate cut.
Traders are pricing in an 84% chance of a 25-basis-point reduction, according to CME FedWatch data, after several Fed officials struck a more dovish tone in recent days.
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