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Outages hit CME’s exchange, affecting FX markets and futures on stocks and Treasurys

After yesterday’s holiday, Black Friday was off to an unusual start after an outage at CME, the world’s biggest exchange operator, hit a number of major markets, halting trading in FX markets as well as affecting futures contracts on stocks, Treasurys, and commodities.

CME Group cited a “cooling issue at CyrusOne data centers” in a short statement on its website, which Reuters reported was posted at 2:40 a.m. GMT, and that it was working to “resolve issues in the near term.”

In an update to the banner on its site, CME says that its BrokerTec US Actives and BrokerTec EU are now open, but that its other markets are currently halted.

While CyrusOne has yet to make a statement about the glitch, CME’s electronic trading platform has been run through CyrusOne’s data center in Aurora, Illinois, after the derivatives exchange sold the campus to the operator in 2016. CyrusOne and the city of Aurora recently reached an agreement to address noise complaints over its chillers, per the Chicago Tribune.

A record daily average of 26.3 million contracts traded through CME in October, with CME one of the biggest sources of liquidity for contracts on a number of core markets, including 10Y Treasurys as well as futures on major US indexes such as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100.

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CarMax rises after activist investor Starboard takes $350 million stake

Online car retailer CarMax is climbing in premarket trading on Wednesday following reports that activist investor Starboard Value has taken a $350 million stake in the company.

Starboard nominated two directors to CarMax’s board, including its own CEO, Jeff Smith, and Frontdoor CEO Bill Cobb.

According to a letter sent by Starboard to CarMax, the hedge fund thinks the company can improve performance by adopting more dynamic pricing, reconditioning vehicles more efficiently, and reducing admin and other costs by more than $300 million.

Per Starboard’s letter: “If the experience is superior, CarMax does not need to be the lowest-priced provider to win. We strongly encourage you to be hyper-focused on the digital end-to-end consumer experience. We believe there is an ample amount of low hanging fruit; so much fruit that it may even be touching the ground.”

CarMax is the largest US used car retailer, but rival Carvana has closed the retail sales gap between the two companies to about 6,000 vehicles as of the two most recent comparable quarters.

According to a letter sent by Starboard to CarMax, the hedge fund thinks the company can improve performance by adopting more dynamic pricing, reconditioning vehicles more efficiently, and reducing admin and other costs by more than $300 million.

Per Starboard’s letter: “If the experience is superior, CarMax does not need to be the lowest-priced provider to win. We strongly encourage you to be hyper-focused on the digital end-to-end consumer experience. We believe there is an ample amount of low hanging fruit; so much fruit that it may even be touching the ground.”

CarMax is the largest US used car retailer, but rival Carvana has closed the retail sales gap between the two companies to about 6,000 vehicles as of the two most recent comparable quarters.

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A “Pokémon” game similar to “Animal Crossing” is selling out at US retailers, boosting Nintendo shares

“Pokémon Pokopia,” a Switch 2 exclusive game in the vein of “Animal Crossing,” has become something of a sleeper mass hit for Nintendo, sending the gaming giant’s shares climbing. The stock closed up more than 8% in Japan on Wednesday. US ADRs are up 5% in premarket trading.

Physical editions of “Pokopia” are currently out of stock on Walmart’s website, and earlier this week Amazon temporarily hiked the price of the game to $80 as demand surged.

“Pokopia” falls into a category of cozy games that have become a major industry category. “Animal Crossing” is the second-most-popular title on the original Switch and has sold more than 49 million copies. The 10-year-old “Stardew Valley” has sold more than 50 million copies across consoles and PC.

The Switch 2 is seeing a momentum boost from the “Pokémon” exclusive, Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal wrote in a recent note. That’s helping to offset investor fears around the growing issue of memory prices.

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