Several major Wall Street investment firms were hit with damaging outages amid a widespread “Black Monday” market crash.
Global fears triggered a massive sell-off in stocks and cryptocurrencies that started over the weekend and ignited a bloodbath on Monday.
However, investors were hit with further frustration as computer systems also crashed at several major companies as traders scrambled to stem the bleeding.
Online services at Charles Schwab and Fidelity Investments experienced significant issues on Monday, Reuters reports.
The outages left many users unable to log into their accounts during a tumultuous trading session.
🚨#BREAKING: Multiple brokerages, including Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, TD Ameritrade, E-Trade, UPS, CenturyLink, and Interactive Brokers, are currently down and reporting errors amid market crashes. pic.twitter.com/H2htHnXynT
— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) August 5, 2024
The outages coincided with a day of heightened market volatility around the world.
Investors dumped risky assets amidst growing concerns about a potential U.S. recession.
Wall Street’s main indexes plummeted on Monday.
The plunge was driven by a combination of weak economic data, disappointing second-quarter earnings from technology giants, and escalating geopolitical tensions.
The confluence of these factors not only revived recession fears but also dampened hopes for a soft landing of the economy.
According to the outage tracking website Down Detector, Schwab was down for more than 3,400 users.
Meanwhile, outage reports on Fidelity peaked at over 3,500.
Vanguard also saw nearly 2,500 outage reports on the website.
However, the company did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
Typically, outage reports on Down Detector represent much larger outages, since only a small minority will actually report such outages to the site.
Both Schwab and Fidelity confirmed that some users were experiencing difficulties accessing their accounts.
However, they did not provide further details on the cause of the outages.
Such technical problems can sometimes be triggered by periods of extreme market volatility.
The issues raise questions about the capacity of brokerages to handle high trading volumes.
Fidelity later announced that it had resolved the issue, providing some relief to affected investors.
Major trading platforms are down to stop people from selling stocks and prevent the biggest market crash in history. You are trapped.
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) August 5, 2024
Earlier in the day, Robinhood Markets, a popular platform among retail investors, also reported a pause in its overnight trading service.
The service allows users to trade select stocks and exchange-traded funds 24 hours a day.
The company later stated that it had resumed the service.
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