CME Outage Reveals a Hidden Investing Opportunity

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Welcome back to Stock Picker’s Corner (SPC) and the last investing month of 2025.

In this issue of Beyond the Headlines, an exclusive feature for all our readers, where we break down the key stories, explain why they matter, and show how they connect to real investing opportunities, we’ll look at:

1️⃣How a shutdown at the world’s largest derivatives exchange exposed a weakness that leads to an opportunity in the data center cooling market.

2️⃣How the trillions being handed down from one generation to the next will redefine investing, spending, and influence for decades to come.

3️⃣And how silver’s explosive price moves are just the appetizer to a bigger story.

What’s Happening 

On November 28, the data center that supports the CME Group Inc. $CME ( ▲ 1.18% ) (the world’s No. 1 derivatives exchange) was knocked out for 10 hours thanks to a cooling system failure.

On an exchange where more than 26 million derivative contracts trade every day, a trading halt in options and futures disrupted markets from Tokyo to London.

Why It Matters 

While hedge funds, market makers and other institutional players rely heavily on the trades and the insights those transactions create, this outage had little impact on retail investors.

So why are we talking about it?

This spotlights an opportunity.

Data centers need an incredible amount of power; a 20 megawatt data center (considered medium-sized) uses enough electricity to power 15,000 homes.

But all that power and all the computer processing it drives means data center gear can get very hot. So the blueprints for these sprawling facilities always include specialized cooling systems.

Investing Takeaway 

Last year in my report, “Visualizing the AI Boom: A Power Play for Profit,” I highlighted several companies that provide cooling systems and power monitoring services for data centers.

One of the big winners in that report has been nVent Electric $NVT ( ▼ 1.93% ) , with shares climbing over 50% since I first wrote about it.

nVent’s advanced liquid-cooling solution is the company’s big selling point since it’s pitched as an improvement over traditional air cooling methods. It also has hybrid cooling systems, which lets data centers prepare for new advances to avoid the stop-and-restart costs of total overhauls.

It might not grab headlines in the AI Era, but as the CME outage proved, robust cooling systems and early fault detection aren’t optional … they’re mission-critical.

What’s Happening 

In “The Great Wealth Transfer,” grandparents and parents will pass as much as $124 trillion to Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z beneficiaries. But Tim Gerend, CEO of the financial services company Northwestern Mutual, believes the transfer will be more gradual and more complex than how it is being portrayed.

“It’s not like, we just passed peak age 65 and now all the money is going to move,” Gerend told Fortune.

People are living longer. And a lot of the money will move sideways by transferring first to a spouse before it jumps generations to reach children or grandchildren.

Why It Matters 

Achieving “financial security” sure seems like the end game for a Wealth Builder.

Here’s where it can get a bit tricky. Accruing the assets that get you to that feeling of financial safety is a laudable achievement. But once you do get there, you need to keep that money safe. And the most successful Wealth Builders of all find ways to keep that money working even after they are gone.

That’s why The Great Wealth Transfer, as a phrase and as a concept, is resonating with people so heavily. It’s igniting excitement in some quarters and worry in others.

If planning that out seems overwhelming, there’s a simple first step to take: Talk with your family members.

That way, there aren’t vague perceptions and expectations of what will happen to what you built.

Investing Takeaway 

In addition to the heirs benefiting from this gradual transfer, there will also be specific companies that benefit from The Great Wealth Transfer.

I’ll have more on that in a later issue.

For today, here are a few resources about wealth strategies and planning we created for the SPC community.

What’s Happening 

Silver is trading at all-time highs thanks to expectations for a rate cut in December. When rates are cut, assets that don’t pay interest or dividends can get a price boost.

Prices are also going up from supply not keeping up with demand.

Inventories on the Shanghai Futures Exchange plummeted to their lowest levels in a decade; if Chinese inventories are depleted, it suggests strong domestic consumption or exports, which tighten global supply.

In October, Chinese silver exports surged to London to ease severe shortages in the global benchmark market.

Why It Matters 

Silver has been front and center in Chief Stock Picker Bill Patalon’s storyline, the Commodity Supply Shortfall, since we first launched our newsletter almost two years ago.

We recognized its power as not only as a hedge against uncertainty, but we also saw its under appreciated role through industrial use cases.

Things like semiconductors, sensors in the automotive industry, solar panels, and much more.

So if you believe the demand for things like chips, data centers, and autonomous vehicles will only increase like we do, then this is still the very early innings for the profit opportunity in silver.

Investing Takeaway 

Our friend Peter Krauth, the author of The Great Silver Bull, told our SPC Premium members in our Quarterly Roundtable in October that he believes silver prices could reach $70 by the second half of 2026.

As for his long-term prediction, he also sees silver reaching $300 within the next few years.

So if you think you’ve missed out on the silver rally this year, remember that you haven’t missed out on anything.

That’s it for this issue.

Take care,