(Bloomberg) -- A technical error at CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) prompted a lengthy trading halt at the world’s largest exchange operator, preventing the buying and selling of contracts tied to U.S. Treasuries, stock-futures and commodities.
The issue affected a slew of markets, from eurodollars to metals, grains, crude oil and natural gas. They will reopen at 9:45 p.m. Central Time on Tuesday after a half-hour preopen, according to a statement from the bourse. That’s about three hours after they stopped.
“This is so annoying for our clients,” said Hiroaki Kuramochi, global sales trader and chief market analyst at Saxo Bank Securities in Tokyo. “There are some people who make arbitrage trades in after-hours trading. This poses a risk of hurting investor sentiment.”
Bursa Malaysia Derivatives, which uses CME Globex as its electronic trading platform for global benchmark crude palm oil futures, also saw a trading halt.
Luckily for traders, markets that were open saw muted price moves. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index of stocks added 0.2 percent, while Brent crude was up 0.6 percent.
Millions of contracts tracking the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq 100 trade every weekday virtually around the clock on the CME. For eight hours each night after extended trading ends on exchange-traded funds, they are effectively the only way to express a view on the biggest U.S. equity indexes. Developments in Asian and American politics have made for volatile trading in recent years.
