Photographer: Gabby Jones / Bloomberg
Photographer: Gabby Jones / Bloomberg
Wednesday’s retail trading caused online brokers to panic, with several sites reporting outages and glitches and one even restricting hot stock trading.
Charles Schwab Corp. was among those affected by service outages, as traders became fixated by wild swings in stocks of highly shorted stocks, such as GameStop Corp. and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. Robinhood Markets, Morgan Stanley’s E * Trade and Fidelity were also affected, according to Downdetector.com, which tracks user complaints.
Schwab’s TD Ameritrade took the rare step of restricting some trades on shares of GameStop, AMC, and others. The company said high volume may have limited access to its mobile app and has spurred customers to use its other platforms.
“We made these decisions out of an abundance of caution amid unprecedented circumstances market conditions and other factors, ”said TD Ameritrade spokeswoman Margaret Farrell in an email.
Robinhood said it managed to fix issues with its web app, while Schwab said some clients were struggling with online trading due to a technical issue.
Read more: GameStop rally hits new extremes as short sellers surrender
Schwab’s customers were experiencing difficulties amid “increased trading in the market,” spokeswoman Mayura Hooper said in an email.
Schwab and Fidelity spokespeople said the companies had resolved the issues with their platforms. E * Trade declined to comment.
(Updates with Schwab that fix issues in the last paragraph.)