London Metal Exchange halts electronic trading across metals markets

Electronic trading on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was halted across all contracts, affecting markets from aluminum to zinc, as dealers awaited updates on a platform outage. The disruption occurred at 2:44 p.m. London time, coinciding with a critical period in the metals calendar ahead of the third Wednesday of the month — traditionally a peak liquidity day — while commodity prices were already volatile due to the war in Iran.

A spokesperson for the LME said the issue affected its electronic trading platform, though other systems continued to operate normally. The electronic market is in a "technical halt," but inter-office trading, conducted over the phone and via electronic messaging between brokers, remains available.

The LME plans to restore electronic trading on a secondary server after the closing prices window (4–5 p.m. London time). In the interim, closing prices will be determined using the exchange's "backup pricing waterfall approach," which considers the most recently traded electronic prices and available bids and offers. Bloomberg data indicated that bids and offers continued in the inter-office market for major contracts, despite the electronic halt.

Prior to the outage, prices were mixed: copper rose 0.6% while aluminum declined 1.3%.

The LME recently launched a new trading platform in March last year as part of a broader technological upgrade aimed at increasing electronic trading functionality. While phone and inter-office trades still dominate large volumes, the exchange has been seeking to transition more activity onto electronic screens following the 2022 nickel crisis.

This interruption is the latest in a series of recent outages affecting the LME and rival exchange operators, including a one-hour delay on Jan. 30 and a ten-hour CME Group outage in November, highlighting ongoing challenges in maintaining stability in commodity markets during periods of volatility.