U.S. stocks opened muted on Friday as a holiday-shortened week and downbeat month ended and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange resumed trading after a data center fault.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ( ^IXIC ) led stocks slightly higher on Black Friday, rising about 0.4% in the first minute of trading. The benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) both rose a little more than 0.2%.
CME Group resumed operations after the suspension of live trading in futures and options in several markets around the world, including US Treasuries and US crude oil. Individual stocks appeared to trade without problems. The outage lasted until 8:30 a.m. ET, when CME said the outage had been resolved.
Stocks rose sharply this week after traders bet the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates less than two weeks from its December meeting. New confidence in AI trades provided a tailwind for tech names heading into Thursday’s close for the Thanksgiving holiday.
But when trading resumes on Friday, Wall Street indexes are looking at a losing month down. A sharp cooldown in megacap tech names led to a fall for November, as investors reassessed how quickly AI-powered businesses can translate hype into sustainable profits.
As of Wednesday’s close, the Dow and S&P 500 were both slightly lower for the month, on track to end a six-month winning streak. The Nasdaq, down 2% so far, is on track to snap a seven-month run of gains.
As November wraps up, analysts are rolling out their stock-market predictions for the coming year. Deutsche Bank is targeting an S&P 500 of 8,000 by the end of 2026, at the high end of the forecast. HSBC and JPMorgan expect the benchmark index to hover around the 7,500 mark.
Markets will close early on Friday, at 1 p.m. ET, with no major earnings or economic data releases on the docket.
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Stocks open with muted gains to close the holiday week
U.S. stocks opened with slight gains to close the holiday-short week and month of November.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ( ^IXIC ) led stocks higher on Black Friday, rising about 0.4% in the first minute of trading. The broader S&P 500 (^GSPC) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) both rose 0.2%.
Stocks rebounded strongly this week after traders bet the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates at its meeting in less than two weeks in December and renew their faith in AI trading.
Markets opened shortly after the CME Group resumed operations after disrupting live trading in futures and options in several markets around the world, including US Treasuries and US crude oil.
The stock market will close at 1 PM ET
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CME Group has resumed trading after markets plunged into darkness
CME Group said all its markets were back up and trading after a widespread outage that lasted several hours due to data center cooling problems.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM=F), S&P 500 (ES=F), and Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) were flat when trading resumed. Dow and S&P 500 futures rose 0.1%, while Nasdaq futures gained 0.3%.
WTI crude oil futures (CL=F) rose 0.3%; Brent futures (BZ=F) rose 0.1%.
CME reopened its forex platform EBS at 7 a.m. ET, but trading for the rest of its markets, including U.S. Treasurys and crude futures, was affected until about 8:30 a.m. ET. CME attributed the outage to a cooling system malfunction at a data center near Chicago.
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Wall Street’s 2026 forecasts are rolling in — and some see the S&P 500 hitting 8,000
Associate Channel of Yahoo Finance writes:
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good morning Here’s what’s happening today.
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CME partially restores operations by restarting the FX platform
The CME (CME) has gradually resumed operations since Friday after stopping trading of futures and options for a few hours due to technical problems.
Forex platform EBS opened for trading at around 7 a.m. ET, according to a notice on the CME website. There was no indication when other markets halted by the outage could expect to resume.
“BrokerTec US Actives and BrokerTec EU are now open. Due to cooling issues in the CyrusOne data centers, our other markets are currently suspended,” the notice said.
Markets in the US and around the world were hit by the CME futures close, with US Treasuries and WTI crude futures taking a hit as bond and commodity platforms went dark.
According to CME, cooling issues at the CyrusOne data centers were at the root of the shutdown.
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Premarket Trending Tickers: Oracle, Alphabet and Strategy
oracle (ORCL) The stock fell more than 1% before the bell on Friday. Morgan Stanley flagged credit market concerns for tech stocks on Thursday, and things will only get worse in 2026 unless Oracle can reassure investors about its AI spending spree.
alphabet (GOOG) The stock rose 1% in premarket trading on Friday. AI efforts and challenges to Nvidia’s ( NVDA ) leadership have been the focus of the tech giant in recent days, thanks to its new AI chips and Gemini 3 chatbot.
strategy (MSTR) The stock rose 2% before the bell. Strategy, which is the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, has seen its stock fall 5% over the past five days due to bitcoin’s decline. Bitcoin has now moved back above $90,000.
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Rate-cut hopes blossomed towards a fourth straight monthly win for the Gold Coast
Bloomberg reports:
Gold (GC=F) is higher, on track for a fourth monthly gain, on high expectations for another interest rate cut in the US.
Futures and options trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange was halted for several hours due to a data center glitch, affecting liquidity in precious metals markets and leading to cold sessions with wider-than-usual bid-ask spreads.
Bullion was near $4,160 an ounce on Friday, up more than 2% for the week. A series of comments from Federal Reserve officials and the release of delayed economic data have bolstered the case for lower borrowing costs, which typically benefit gold because it doesn’t pay interest. Swap traders are pricing in a more than -80% chance of a quarter-point cut in December.
Read more here.
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Commodity trading halted as data center issue halts CME futures
Bloomberg reports:
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Oil saw its biggest one-month drop in two years
Bloomberg reports:
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