US stocks opened with a subdued tone on Friday as the holiday-shortened week came to an end, coinciding with a lackluster month for the market. The trading atmosphere was further affected as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) resumed operations following a significant data center glitch that had disrupted futures and options trading across multiple markets worldwide.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite saw a modest increase of approximately 0.4% in the early trading minutes of Black Friday. Meanwhile, the broader S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average both posted gains of slightly more than 0.2%. This slight upward movement occurs amid a backdrop of increased optimism, with traders boosting their bets that the Federal Reserve may consider cutting interest rates during its upcoming December meeting.
The CME Group’s operations were halted due to a cooling system failure affecting a data center near Chicago, which led to a widespread outage disrupting markets, including US Treasurys and US crude oil. Trading was interrupted until around 8:30 a.m. ET, when the CME confirmed that normal operations had resumed, allowing individual stocks to trade without significant issues.
Throughout the week, stock prices rebounded after a recent downturn as renewed interest in technology stocks, particularly those driven by artificial intelligence (AI), provided momentum leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday. However, upon the resumption of trading, the Wall Street indexes confronted a disappointing month. Notably, a slowdown in the performance of major technology companies has contributed to declines observed in November, with investors reevaluating the rapid translation of AI hype into tangible profits.
As of Wednesday’s market close, both the Dow and S&P 500 were slightly down for the month, indicating a potential end to their six-month streak of gains. The Nasdaq had declined by 2% and was poised to break a seven-month upward trend. Analysts have begun publishing their stock market predictions for 2026, with Deutsche Bank setting a target of 8,000 for the S&P 500 at the upper limit of forecasts, while HSBC and JPMorgan expect the index to stabilize around 7,500.
In terms of trading activity, the CME restored trading for its foreign-exchange platform around 7 a.m. ET, although futures contracts on both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 showed slight stability, with gains of 0.1%. Meanwhile, Nasdaq futures experienced a 0.3% uptick, while crude oil futures saw similar gains.
In premarket trading, notable tickers included Oracle, which saw a drop of more than 1% due to concerns flagged by Morgan Stanley regarding the credit market. In contrast, Alphabet saw a rise of 1% as investor attention shifted towards its AI strategies, particularly as it looks to rival Nvidia. Additionally, the stock of Strategy surged by 2% as bitcoin prices rebounded above $90,000 after a recent decline.
Gold prices were also on the rise, heading towards a fourth consecutive monthly gain, spurred by increasing expectations for interest-rate cuts in the US. Following the CME outages affecting trading in precious metals, liquidity was impacted, contributing to choppy market conditions. Gold had reached approximately $4,160 per ounce, reflecting a more than 2% increase for the week, as traders positioned themselves for a potential quarter-point rate cut in December.
As the market closed early on Friday at 1 p.m. ET, there were no major earnings or economic data releases scheduled for the day, leaving investors to digest the recent developments in a turbulent market environment.
