The "Black Friday Shopping Festival" saw light trading, with trading at the CME temporarily halted due to a system failure, while gold and oil both rose, and silver reached a new high

Market expectations for a Federal Reserve interest rate cut continue to rise, driving global stock markets towards their best weekly performance since June. On the trading front, a system failure at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) disrupted futures trading. Additionally, due to the "Black Friday" holiday, the U.S. stock market closed three hours early on that day.

On November 28, European stock indices mostly opened higher, Asian stock indices showed mixed results, the U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasury yields remained flat, gold, silver, and oil all rose, while cryptocurrencies saw slight declines.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) experienced trading interruptions due to a cooling system failure at its data center, affecting products including S&P 500 futures, Nasdaq futures, and the EBS forex trading platform, which also paused due to technical issues. Nick Twidale, Chief Analyst at AT Global Markets in Sydney, stated:

"Traders will turn to other liquidity tools as much as possible. We have lost one of the main sources of market liquidity, and if a significant event occurs, it will exacerbate the risk of severe market volatility."

Core market movements are as follows:

• The Euro Stoxx 50 index opened up 0.1%, the German DAX index opened flat, the UK FTSE 100 index rose 0.2%, and the French CAC 40 index rose 0.1%.
• The Nikkei 225 index closed up 0.2%, at 50,253.91 points. The Tokyo Stock Exchange index rose 0.3%, at 3,378.44 points. The Seoul Composite Index closed down 1.5%, at 3,926.59 points.
• The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds remained flat at 4.00%.
• The U.S. dollar index remained flat at 99.64; the British pound fell 0.2% to $1.3218; the yen to dollar exchange rate remained flat at 156.41.
• Spot gold rose 0.64% to $4,184 per ounce, spot silver approached $54 per ounce; Brent crude oil prices stabilized above $63 per barrel.
• Bitcoin prices remained flat at $91,357.67, while Ethereum fell 0.7% to $3,011.69.

Driven by rising market expectations for another Federal Reserve interest rate cut, gold is poised for its fourth consecutive month of gains. Year-to-date, gold prices have largely achieved monthly increases, potentially marking the best annual performance since 1979. The futures market indicates an approximately 80% probability of a 25 basis point rate cut by the Federal Reserve next month, with a tendency for three more cuts before the end of 2026.

Spot silver is currently stable around $54 per ounce, having briefly reached a historic high. This round of gains is on track for a seventh consecutive month of increases, which would be the longest streak since 1980.

Brent crude oil prices remain steady above $63 per barrel, but are still expected to record a fourth consecutive month of decline in November, marking the longest losing streak since May 2023. OPEC+ member countries will hold a meeting this Sunday, and it is expected that they will maintain the original plan to suspend production increases until early 2026.