TD Ameritrade Site Outages Anger Clients

Around 10:35 a.m., another Twitter account asked what was going on, tweeting, “Trades are all screwed up!”

TD Ameritrade responded that it was “investigating intermittent issues with the website at this time.”

“Wow nice no warning about changing the web home page. @TDAmeritrade,” one Twitter account posted at 9:23 a.m. ET, shortly before the stock market opened Friday.

TD Ameritrade’s account soon responded: “Hello, we are sorry for any confusion. There is a known issue with the TDA next gen website. You may be accessing the classic version of our website today, which will have a different appearance and home screen.”

Downdetector, which tracks technical issues with websites, posted a chart showing a spike in outages for TD Ameritrade starting about 8 a.m. ET. Roughly 77% of problems were tied to the website and 18% to login issues at 10 a.m.

“User reports indicate problems at TD Ameritrade,” the site said.

Meanwhile, several Twitter posts indicated investors had problems with orders on Thinkorswim. At 10:45 a.m., the TD Ameritrade Twitter account posted that the firm was working to restore full functionality to the TD Ameritrade website and to Thinkorswim, and gave a number for further assistance.

And Thinkorswim tweeted at 11:23 a.m.: “Hello. We did briefly have reports of some clients not seeing active orders on tos. This issue was quickly resolved, and if you have an order you’d like reviewed please just give us a call.”

“No orders working for me on TOS. Had to open my phone and close order on mobile app. Even then the wheel spun for about a minute,” one user tweeted around 11 a.m. About 20 minutes later, that Twitter account posted that Thinkorswim was “working normally again.”

One self-described options trader tweeted: “Pissed. @TDAmeritrade and @thinkorswim ate at my profit today because of failed/delayed executions and an absolute Active Trader nightmare. Unacceptable.”

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