Which were some brokers with technical problems during this week of market chaos with high volume?

If the platform is down due to high volume, I would expect the phone lines to be jammed as well. Lots of panicky traders will be calling the brokers by phone to sell down their position. I seriously doubt there will be enough human operators to answer the phone.

The safest is to have a reliable broker that does not break down during high volume panic days. Interactive Brokers seems to be good so far. I hope IB will continue their performance given that their platform is a favourite among the active traders.

Overnight said:
The way I see it, a smartphone is something to be used if your platform breaks or you are away during a major event. One of the coolest things I wanted to mention to the OP is regarding this...



Well, that is the point of having a mobile phone...To make phone calls. If you are in a bind and cannot ever get through to your broker to place an order, then you need to find another broker. That is important, especially in these volatile times.
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learner88 said:
The safest is to have a reliable broker that does not break down during high volume panic days. Interactive Brokers seems to be good so far. I hope IB will continue their performance given that their platform is a favourite among the active traders.
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We were fine this week but technical problems can happen at any broker. If you have the assets and trade full time, a second broker is your best bet.
 
Had issues with AxiTrader using MT4. Trading the S&P500 CFD, sometimes the market would freeze for minutes and I was unable to get a quote or even close my positions. Obviously I am now going to close my account with them and find another broker. Anyone have any good recommendations for CFD brokers for a European citizen. I only trade the S&P500.
 
learner88 said:
One nightmare I have as a retail trader is to be locked out of my trading account because the broker's platform broke down as a result of very high volume.

Were there any brokers who suffered technical problems this week? It will be good for clients to know as this is an important factor when choosing broker. I would rather pay more than take on this risk of being locked out during a time when I need to get out.

I am using Interactive Brokers. I did not encounter any problems. How about those using cheaper platforms like Robin Hood? Did the cheaper platforms suffer technical problems?
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IB had a major outage a few weeks ago, was down for like 3-4 hours. It was an option exp Friday if I recall.
 
learner88 said:
One nightmare I have as a retail trader is to be locked out of my trading account because the broker's platform broke down as a result of very high volume.

Were there any brokers who suffered technical problems this week? It will be good for clients to know as this is an important factor when choosing broker. I would rather pay more than take on this risk of being locked out during a time when I need to get out.

I am using Interactive Brokers. I did not encounter any problems. How about those using cheaper platforms like Robin Hood? Did the cheaper platforms suffer technical problems?
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IB goes down.

https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/interactive-brokers-outage.316764/#post-4578759
 
If the objective is to buy, having a second broker helps. However, if the main concern is in not being able to sell out the equities held in custody, having a second broker is not helpful. The equities are held in custody. Customers can only sell out using the same broker through which equities were bought.

Robert Morse said:
We were fine this week but technical problems can happen at any broker. If you have the assets and trade full time, a second broker is your best bet.
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Data outages are bad, but not nearly as bad as not being able to access the broker site or software at all. It helps to have market data to be able to trade, but you can use a free site or another broker to get market data in a pinch (or if you're too cheap to pay IB for it) and still place your sell orders or hedge if needed to manage your risk.

IB hasnt gone down in my recent memory, the way you couldn't log in to TDA at all for an hour on Tuesday.
 
helpme_please said:
If the objective is to buy, having a second broker helps. However, if the main concern is in not being able to sell out the equities held in custody, having a second broker is not helpful. The equities are held in custody. Customers can only sell out using the same broker through which equities were bought.
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You can always buy an opposite position at the other broker to freeze your P&L. Not ideal but better than a sharp stick in the eye that you'd get otherwise.
 
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IB has had two Friday's in the past month with outage related problems. One of those Friday's only affected ES FOP's. I did notice that there were at least a handful of traditional retail brokerages down Monday/Tuesday, similar to what happened on Aug 24, 2015.
 
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