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What Happens to Your Orders When CME Globex Goes Down?

Phoenix Technologies Team November 4, 2026 · 12 min read · Updated November 4, 2026

When CME halts Globex for a technical failure, your open positions stay open, nothing trades, and no stop loss can fire until the market reopens. What reaches the reopen depends on the order type: in the November 2025 and February 2026 outages CME cancelled day orders and same-day GTD (good-till-date) orders, while GTC (good-till-cancelled) orders stayed working (in February, CME said, those already acknowledged). The risk is a reopening gap against a position whose stop is either gone or fills at the opening price instead of yours.

Key takeaway

A CME technical halt freezes everything: positions stay on and stops wait, because no price trades. According to CME statements reported by The TRADE (November 2025) and Reuters (February 2026), day orders and GTDs dated for the halt day were cancelled; GTC orders kept working into the reopen, per CME's Global Command Center via FX News Group in November and, in February, those CME had already acknowledged. A surviving GTC stop is elected in the opening auction and fills near the opening price, so in our illustrative ES case a 25-point gap costs $1,250 against a planned $500.

What happens to your open position when CME Globex goes down?

Your position stays where it was, held at your broker, and you cannot close it until Globex matches orders again. A technical halt (trading stopped by a system failure rather than by a market rule) means no trades print at all, so no stop can be triggered by a price that never trades.

That settles the belief that a stop protects you during an outage. A stop waits for a trade at its price, whether it rests in CME's book or on a platform server, so while the engine is down it waits with you. How each order type works on a normal day is in our guide to futures order types.

Thor runs 24/7 on cloud servers, but during a halt each follower position sits at its broker exactly like the master's, and nothing can fill until CME trades again. What to check after a restart is in copier failover and recovery.

What happened in the November 2025 and February 2026 CME outages?

On November 27, 2025, a data-centre cooling failure halted CME Globex overnight, and futures and options reopened at 7:30 a.m. CT on November 28, about 10 hours 50 minutes after CME's first notice. On February 25, 2026, CME announced a halt of metals and natural gas futures and options at 12:15 p.m. CT; by CME's stated reopen times natural gas was back 35 minutes later and metals after 90.

CME's November statement, as quoted by Fortune, read: "Due to a cooling issue at CyrusOne data centers, our markets are currently halted." The TRADE reported that "Participants were first notified of the issue at 8.40pm CT on Thursday," which was US Thanksgiving, and that all day orders and GTDs for November 28 remained cancelled. BrokerTec and EBS were hit too; The TRADE reported EBS was set to reopen at 12pm GMT.

In February, Reuters quoted CME's emailed statement: "Natural gas futures and options markets reopened at 12:50 CT. Metals markets reopened at 1:45 CT." CME gave no cause beyond a technical issue. According to Finance Magnates (February 2026), CME's Global Command Center flagged the problem at 12:11 p.m. CT, on the expiry day of March natural gas futures.

The table turns the reported times into durations, with CME's June 2026 front-end outage added for contrast.

Incident	Start (CT)	Reopen (CT)	Duration
Nov 27 to 28, 2025: futures and options	8:40 p.m. (first notice)	7:30 a.m.	10h 50m (650 min)
Nov 28, 2025: Globex FX spot plus	8:40 p.m. (first notice)	8:30 a.m.	11h 50m (710 min)
Feb 25, 2026: natural gas	12:15 p.m. (CME notice)	12:50 p.m.	35 min from notice (reports range up to about 50)
Feb 25, 2026: metals	12:15 p.m.	1:45 p.m.	1h 30m (90 min)
Jun 22, 2026: CME Direct front end only, Globex up	about 1:00 p.m.	5:05 p.m.	4h 05m (245 min)

Computed by Phoenix Technologies from the times CME stated or the named outlets reported; method: minutes between clock times, adding 24 hours across midnight, no rounding. An outage can last 35 minutes or most of a night, so plan for the long one.

Reports of the natural gas halt range from 35 to about 50 minutes; CME's own notice and reopen times give 35. Kitco reported silver testing highs above $91 an ounce when the halt hit and retail traders alleging manipulation; no published evidence supports that claim or rules it out.

On one clock, the November overnight halt dwarfs February's, and the June front-end outage ran about four hours while Globex kept trading.

Recent outages lasted from 35 minutes to most of a night, and even after the reopen some traders' screens stayed dark while their orders filled.

How often does CME Globex go down?

CME publishes no outage frequency or Globex uptime figure that we could find, so any count comes from news reports. Those show halts in February 2019, November 2025 and February 2026, a two-minute NYMEX halt at the natural gas close in late January 2026, and a front-end outage in June 2026 while Globex kept trading.

Reuters reported in 2019 that all Globex markets halted on the evening of February 26 and that "all operations had returned to normal between 0330 and 0400 GMT" the next day. Finance Magnates wrote that in January 2026 NYMEX "imposed an unusual two-minute trading halt during the market close for natural gas, skewing the settlement price". The two most recent full halts came 90 days apart: rare, but not rare enough to ignore if you hold across sessions.

Are day orders and GTC orders cancelled after a CME outage?

Day orders were cancelled and acknowledged GTC orders were not. In both outages CME cancelled every day order and every GTD order dated for the halt day, and GTC orders kept working into the reopen, where they could fill; in February CME limited that to GTCs it had already acknowledged.

For February, Reuters reported CME saying day and GTD orders for that Wednesday would be cancelled, while "good-till-canceled (GTC) orders that had already been acknowledged would remain working." CME's order qualifier documentation explains why day orders are fragile: "Day orders are intended to be active only during that trading day." The table maps each order type to its fate.

Order	Where it rests	Fate at reopen (Nov 2025, Feb 2026)
Day order, including day-order bracket legs	CME book	Cancelled
GTD dated the halt day	CME book	Cancelled
GTD dated a later day	CME book	Kept working in Nov 2025, per preliminary CME Global Command Center findings (FX News Group); not stated for Feb 2026
Acknowledged GTC limit	CME book	Kept working; could fill at the reopen
Acknowledged GTC stop	CME stop book	Kept working; elected in the opening auction, fills near the opening price
Sent but not acknowledged	Unknown	Not stated by CME; confirm with your broker
Platform-held (synthetic) stop or bracket	Platform server	Outside CME's book; depends on the platform
FAK or FOK order outside the Open state	Never rests	Rejected

Compiled by Phoenix Technologies from CME's statements as reported by Reuters, TheFly, The TRADE and FX News Group, and from CME's order documentation. Your outcome is the row your protective stop sits in.

Your platform often picks that row. A bracket child can go to CME as a day order or a GTC, or stay on the platform's server until triggered. TradeStation's CME route page is the clearest public example: without a specific trigger setting, "the Stop Market order will be synthesized by being routed to the TradeStation Order Execution Network's Stop Server."

A synthetic stop never sits in CME's book, so CME's notices do not cover it, and no other retail platform documents its handling in a source we found. How bracket legs change across platforms is in brackets and stops across platforms. This also settles two myths: CME does not cancel all orders, and protective orders placed before a disruption do not all stay active, since day-order stops were cancelled.

Surviving orders can fill while you cannot see them. After the November reopen, CME's Global Command Center said, as reported by FX News Group, that GTC and GTD orders on CME Direct "were working from the Globex reopening at 07:30 CT and were subsequently filled or partially filled" before that front end returned around 10:30 CT. For about 3 hours, those users saw incorrect status while their orders traded.

Read the grid by row: two order types were cancelled, three kept working (later-dated GTDs in November only), two depend on your broker or platform, and one is rejected.

Day orders and same-day GTDs, the red block at the top, were cancelled; the green block below kept working. Your outcome depends on which row your protective stop sits in, and your platform often picks it.

Is a CME technical halt the same as limit down?

No. In a price-limit halt CME's market is running and refuses trades beyond a band; in a technical halt the system itself has stopped, and CME decides afterwards which orders to cancel.

At limit down you can still sell at the limit if a buyer takes the other side, and a triggered stop waits in the queue there, as explained in how price limits pause ES. In a technical halt there is no queue, no live price and no rule fixed in advance, only CME's notice. CME's market state documentation says that in Pre-Open "Order Entry, modification, and cancel are allowed. No order matching". CME did not say which state, if any, applied during the outages, so do not assume a cancel you sent was accepted.

Side by side, the same long ES position meets a live book at limit down and a stopped engine in a technical halt.

At limit down your stop joins a live queue; in a technical halt there is no queue, and the orders that remain are whatever CME's notice keeps.

What happens to your stop loss when CME reopens?

A surviving GTC stop does not fill at its stop price. In the opening auction CME checks whether the Indicative Opening Price (the price at which the most volume would match) elects resting stops, and an elected stop fills around the open; a day-order stop that CME cancelled is gone.

CME's opening price rules state: "CME Globex assesses the Stop Order book to determine if the Indicative Opening Price elects any Stop Orders." That is the same reason stops fill away from their price after any gap.

Take one long E-mini S&P 500 (ES) contract at $50 per index point, the multiplier NinjaTrader's contract specs list with a $12.50 tick. The stop distance and gap are illustrative, not measured from either outage.

You set a sell stop 10 points under entry. Planned loss: 10 x $50 = $500.
Globex halts and reopens 25 points under your entry.
An acknowledged GTC stop is elected and fills near the open: 25 x $50 = $1,250, or 100 ticks of $12.50.
That is $750 more than planned, 2.5 times the loss you sized for.
A day-order stop was cancelled instead. You reopen with a $1,250 open loss and no stop at all until you place one.

The second case is worse, because nothing limits the loss until you act; holding through a halt resembles holding through a session gap.

A surviving stop fills at the opening price, not at its own, so the halt turned a $500 plan into a $1,250 loss.

Two reopen rules catch traders out. FAK (fill and kill) and FOK (fill or kill) orders are, per CME, "accepted during the Open market state only; they will be rejected during any other market state," so a flatten button that sends them fails in Pre-Open. And a stop you re-enter in Pre-Open is checked against settlement: under CME's order type rules, "a Sell stop order must be < settlement price".

If the market is indicated far below settlement, a new sell stop just under the settlement price is still above the opening price and will be elected in the auction.

How do you tell if CME is down or only your platform or broker?

Check a second, independent source before you act. If every symbol is frozen on every platform and broker and CME has issued a statement, the exchange is down; if only one platform, broker route or data feed is affected, Globex is probably trading and your orders may be filling.

On June 22, 2026, CME Direct, CME's own front end, had disconnects from about 1:00 p.m. CT until 5:05 p.m. CT, which CME attributed to a third-party network issue. Crypto Briefing reported that "CME Globex, the exchange's core electronic trading engine, remained fully operational throughout the incident." TradeStation says the same of its own link: if it drops, "all open orders will remain working in the market as usual."

What you see	Likely source	What it means for your orders
Every symbol frozen everywhere; CME statement on the wires	Exchange (Nov 2025, Feb 2026)	Nothing trades; CME's notice decides what survives
CME's own front end dark, prices moving elsewhere	Front end (CME Direct, June 2026)	Orders at CME can fill unseen
One broker's accounts disconnected, other brokers trading	Broker connectivity	Exchange-held orders keep working; server-held stops depend on the broker
Quotes stale but orders fill	Data feed	The market is live; your chart is not
One platform or copier only	Platform	The market is live; the fault is local

Compiled by Phoenix Technologies from the incidents above. Only the first row means nothing trades. For the others, see how to spot a dead data feed, why your chart and broker disagree and a diagnostic for a copier that stops.

Run the four questions in order; only the first answer means the market itself stopped.

Only one branch of the tree means the market stopped; on every other branch your position can still move while your screen is frozen.

Who pays for losses from a CME outage?

In most cases you do. Under CME's Rule 578, as revised in a 2012 filing with the CFTC, CME, CBOT and NYMEX are not liable for losses from exchange system failures. Where CME chooses to accept liability for negligence or incorrect order status, the total is capped at $200,000 per calendar month for all claimants combined.

The 2012 CME submission to the CFTC describes "maintaining a $200,000 per month cap". At illustrative scale, that covers 160 losses the size of the $1,250 ES example, across every claimant in a month. The current rulebook could not be checked for this article, so read CME's Chapter 5 for today's figure; no source we found says CME compensated anyone for either recent outage.

Rule 579 says persons other than registered contacts, "including non-members with Globex access pursuant to Rule 574, must contact their clearing members to make support requests." So you call your broker, FCM or prop firm, not CME's Global Command Center. No prop firm publishes a policy for a CME exchange halt that we could find; the relief cases reported second-hand in 2026 concerned platform or data-feed outages.

What should you do before and during a CME outage?

Before an outage, know which kind of stop protects each position and size so a reopening gap cannot breach your loss limit. During and after it, confirm the source, do not resend blindly, and read order status from your broker.

Ask your platform whether bracket stops go to CME as day orders, as GTCs, or stay on its server.
Test your size against the gap, not the stop.
Take care on expiry days. A halt leaves no way to roll a futures contract.
When everything freezes, run the symptom test before touching anything.
Do not resend an order you cannot see. An order sent just before the halt has no stated fate; confirm with your broker or you may end up with two.
At the reopen, read status from the broker, not a front end that may be stale, and avoid FAK and FOK orders until the Open state.
Afterwards, reconcile every fill against your statement and keep an order audit trail for any dispute.

The decision rule: if your stop is a day order, assume you reopen with no stop; if it is an acknowledged GTC, assume it fills at the opening price; if a platform holds it, ask the platform. If your remaining loss buffer cannot absorb 2.5 times your planned stop loss (the illustrative ratio above), the position is too large to hold through a halt.

Go deeper

Frequently asked questions

Will my prop firm reset my account after a CME outage?

Not by any published rule we could find: no prop firm publishes a policy for a CME exchange halt. The relief cases reported in 2026 concerned platform or data-feed outages, not exchange halts. Ask your firm in writing and keep the reply.

What is the CME Global Command Center and can I call it?

It is CME's support desk for members, clearing members and designated customers. Under Rule 579, non-members with Globex access must go through their clearing member. A retail or prop trader calls the broker or prop firm instead.

Does a CME outage cancel my GTC take-profit limit order?

Not if CME acknowledged it before the halt. In both recent outages GTC orders stayed working and could fill at the reopen; in February CME specified GTCs already acknowledged. In November 2025 some filled while CME Direct users still could not see them.

What does an acknowledged order mean in a CME outage notice?

It is an order CME confirmed receiving before the halt. CME's notices only promised that acknowledged GTC orders would keep working. An order you sent just before the halt but never saw confirmed has no stated fate, so check it with your broker before resending.

Do stop-limit orders behave differently at a reopen?

Yes. CME says a stop-limit order is activated when its trigger price is traded, and it then works as a limit order. If the market opens beyond your limit, it can stay unfilled while price runs away. A stop with protection fills only within its protection range.

What caused the February 2026 CME halt?

CME said only that it was a technical issue. No root cause has been published in any source we found. The November 2025 halt, by contrast, was attributed by CME to a cooling issue at CyrusOne data centres.

Can I roll my futures position during a CME outage?

No. A roll is two trades, and nothing trades during a technical halt. The February 25, 2026 halt fell on the expiry day of March natural gas futures, the day traders normally roll.

Does Cancel on Disconnect protect me if CME goes down?

Not as a halt rule. CME's Cancel on Disconnect cancels resting futures and options orders when a COD-enabled iLink session disconnects, and CME states this does not include GTC and GTD orders. In the two recent halts, CME's outage notices decided what survived. Our copier failover guide covers it in more detail.

Sources

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