CME technical malfunction causes interruption in natural gas and metals futures trading, all Wednesday orders cancelled.

On Wednesday this week, a technical malfunction occurred at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group, forcing its natural gas and metals futures markets to halt trading for more than half an hour. This is another systemic trading interruption at the CME markets, following an abnormal halt in benchmark natural gas futures trading a month ago. The event coincided with the expiration date of the March natural gas futures contract, making its impact on the market significant.

At 12:15 p.m. North American time on February 25, CME announced the suspension of CME Globex metals and natural gas futures and options trading, and about 25 minutes later released a timetable for resumption: Natural gas futures markets reopened at 12:50, while metals futures markets reopened at 13:45.

CME also announced that all orders placed on the same day and GTD orders marked with that day's date would be canceled; only confirmed GTC orders would remain valid.

Following the malfunction, Bloomberg data showed that starting at 2:00 a.m. Beijing time on February 26, trading data for COMEX gold, silver, copper futures, and NYMEX natural gas futures began to show “missing” entries. Natural gas futures resumed trading after 3:00 a.m. Beijing time, with gains quickly expanding to over 3%, hitting a daily high of $3.017.

Nicky Shiels, Head of Metals Strategy at MKS PAMP SA, commented that a “freeze” right before market close is “terrible timing,” and that “all participants who use futures as pricing and hedging tools were affected.”

Sequence of Malfunctions: Four System Alerts Issued Within 25 Minutes

System alerts posted on CME's official website clearly outline the response process.

At 12:11 p.m. Central North American time on the 25th, CME's Global Command Center (GCC) issued a warning, stating it had identified a technical issue impacting metals and natural gas futures and options, which was under investigation.

Four minutes later, at 12:15 p.m., CME officially announced the suspension of trading for the aforementioned markets.

At 12:33 p.m., CME posted an operational notice explaining the handling arrangements for orders before the markets reopened.

At 12:40 p.m., CME further announced the specific reopening time for the natural gas futures market. The reopening notification for the metals futures market followed separately, with a trading start time about 55 minutes later than the natural gas futures market.

CME did not explain the specific cause of this technical failure.

Second Trading Halt in a Month, Natural Gas Contract Expiry Adds to Chaos

The timing of this malfunction is particularly sensitive.

March U.S. natural gas futures contracts expired precisely on February 25, and the trading interruption directly disrupted the normal settlement process for contracts nearing delivery, exposing position holders to additional operational uncertainties.

This is the second trading interruption in CME's natural gas futures market within about a month.

According to previous reports, during a record surge in natural gas futures prices on January 27, CME's New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) imposed an abnormal trading halt lasting two minutes during market close, resulting in settlement price deviations and confusing traders whose sentiment was already strained by demand expectation swings due to cold snap weather.

Two trading halts within a month have significantly increased market concerns over the stability of CME's trading system.

Nicky Shiels’ remarks reflect the broad worries in the market: Any failure in trading infrastructure during critical price discovery windows can have a substantial impact on institutional investors using futures for pricing and risk management.

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