09/20 8:37A (RT) Network problem halts CME electronic early Friday Story 2055 (I/US, I/FRX, I/DRV, I/DBT, I/GVD, I/GRA, I/LIV, I/STX, I/OILS...) CHICAGO, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Electronic trade on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the world's No. 2 futures exchange, was halted for nearly two hours early Friday due to a "network issue," the exchange said. Trading on the exchange's electronic platform, Globex, was halted at 5:15 a.m. CDT (1015 GMT) and resumed at 7 a.m. CDT (1200 GMT), an exchange spokesman said. He had no other details. The outage included the actively traded Standard & Poor's 500 futures and the Nasdaq 100 futures. Problems handling record volume on the electronic platform prompted the CME to delay a planned expansion of electronic trading capabilities that had been set for mid-July. The expansion has been planned to enhance screen-based trading of complex combinations of futures on Eurodollars, the world's most actively traded futures contract. The CME said in mid July that some users had trouble connecting to Globex during recent periods of high volume. In addition, the system in at least one instance sent a user an erroneous message stating that an order was canceled, when in fact the order was actually filled. ((Chicago Derivatives Desk(312)408-8750 chicago.derivatives.newsroom@reuters.com)) REUTERS Rtr 08:37 09-20-02 Additional Codes ( I/MEAL)