By Giulia Petroni
Trading in all contracts on the London Metal Exchange was halted Monday afternoon, preventing traders from placing or matching electronic orders in metals ranging from copper to aluminum.
"We are aware of an issue and working to resolve it as soon as possible," a spokesperson for the exchange said. The disruption affects trading on the exchange's electronic platform, LMEselect.
Contracts stopped trading shortly after 1440 GMT, according to trading data from LSEG. Before the outage, prices were broadly mixed, with three-month copper up 0.9% and aluminum down 1.3%.
The London-based exchange is owned by bourse operator Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing.
The incident is the latest in a series of exchange disruptions in recent months. In late January, the LME delayed the start of trading because of technical issues, temporarily stifling activity. In late November, CME Group was unable to offer trading in futures tied to U.S. stock indexes, Treasurys and crude oil for more than 10 hours after a data center it relied on overheated.
Write to Giulia Petroni at giulia.petroni@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 16, 2026 12:45 ET (16:45 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.