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Traders grappled with technical problems on several big online trading platforms on Monday morning, as global stock markets entered into a rout.
Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, and TD Ameritrade all experienced issues on Monday morning amid the selloff, according to Downdetector, an online service that tracks user-reported outages at major companies. TD Ameritrade is an online broker owned by Schwab.
The problems appeared to begin at around 9:30 a.m. ET, when the market opened, Downdetector shows. Schwab and Fidelity were both up and running normally by mid-day.
Several users on X complained about not being able to log into their accounts at all at Schwab, Fidelity, and Vanguard. In an alert posted to its website, Schwab said some clients may have difficulties logging into its platforms due to a technical issue. Fidelity also acknowledged in a post on X that some customers were having issues logging in.
Global stock markets were in the grips of a quickly intensifying rout on Monday morning. It started with Japan’s Nikkei 225 plunging 12% — its worst day since the 1987 Black Monday crash. In the U.S., Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell more than 1,000 points, and S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures both dropped.
The downturn was spurred by Friday’s weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs report, that saw employers add just 114,000 jobs in July. This fell far short of the 175,000 gain economists had projected, according to estimates compiled by FactSet. At the same time, unemployment ticked up to 4.3%, it’s highest level in three years. The Bank of Japan also raised its benchmark interest rate, causing the value of the yen to rise.
Stocks across industries were hit hard: Major tech stocks, including Nvidia and Apple plunged amid the chaos. And even electric vehicle stocks suffered from sell offs. The price of Bitcoin also plummeted from $70,000 to $50,000 in just a week, and declined by more than 15% in the past 24 hours alone.