Trading Platforms Suffer Service Breaks as Markets Plunge
Online brokerages including Charles Schwab and Fidelity Investments experienced widespread outages Monday, affecting thousands of users as global markets tumbled.
The disruptions, reporting by outage tracking website Downdetector.com, coincided with a sharp sell-off in U.S. stocks driven by recession concerns.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 plunged 12% in its worst day since the 1987 Black Monday crash, highlighting the global nature of the market decline.
ETF Performance Reflects Market Volatility
The SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA) fell 2.6%, while the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) dropped 3.3%. The ProShares VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (VIXY), which tracks market volatility, surged 33%.
Fears of a U.S recession were the primary driver of the global market meltdown, following Friday’s disappointing July jobs report. Investors are also concerned that the Federal Reserve may delay cutting interest rates, potentially prolonging an economic slowdown.
The trading platform outages affected users across multiple brokerages. According to Downdector, Schwab had issues reported for more than 15,000 people, while Fidelity saw reports for over 3,700 users. Vanguard had more than 2,800 people reporting problems and TD Ameritrade has reports from nearly 2,000 users.
Downdetector, which tracks these outages, collects data through user self-reports and information gathered from social media and other web sources.