Retail Traders Furious As Outages Hit Major US Brokerages Amid Black Monday Chaos

US retail traders are panicking this AM after likely receiving push notifications on their smartphones about market turmoil in Asia and Europe, which has since spread to the US premarket. Now that the cash session is about 15 minutes underway, website monitor DownDector reports outages are emerging across several major US brokerage houses as everyone tries to log into their accounts and sell stocks. 

DownDector reports that users of Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Ameritrade, Vanguard, and E-Trade are all reporting website outages, which have been surging around the start of the US cash session. 

For more color on the global stock meltdown, read this earlier note: “Black Monday: Futures Plummet As VIX Hits 62, Japan Suffers Worst Point Drop In History.” 

Just panic, just panic everywhere (courtesy of Bloomberg): 

Here’s what X users are saying…

@CharlesSchwab wtf super not cool – so close to losing a long time TOS user after months of downhill app performance since the handoff from TDA#thinkorswim $SPY $QQQ $IWM pic.twitter.com/wVAhby9SSp

— NoSlack4Romeo (@ns4r101) August 5, 2024

🚨 https://t.co/wGXe2KE5ya, formerly ThinkorSwim, shows a “technical problem” and is already preventing trades, while Robinhood has halted trading on their site. These financial institutions are protecting their rigged and corrupt legacy systems. It’s time for change! pic.twitter.com/NsYnxr59ML

— CryptoRealtor (@mycryptorealtor) August 5, 2024

Won’t even let people log into thinkorswim are you fucking serious? @CharlesSchwab pic.twitter.com/HqHYKZXRui

— Colton Groves (@itscoltongroves) August 5, 2024

Weird. I can’t log on to my brokerage account to buy more $TSLA. Tried multiple times. Something tells me this is not by accident looking at how red the market is today.

— Doctor Jack (@DoctorJack16) August 5, 2024

Anyone else unable to log into their brokerage account?

— AntiGanda (@AntiGanda7846) August 5, 2024

Can’t log in to @CharlesSchwab brokerage account.

Unacceptable.

— Eric Stevenson 🇺🇸 (@ewstevenson) August 5, 2024

My brokerage account#USD #Yen pic.twitter.com/HwtUSYHWTi

— Vigneshsr (@vicky_evol) August 5, 2024

@CharlesSchwab won’t even let me log into my account. Have to appreciate the flimsy infrastructure of these brokerage firms on days where it’s most critical to have eyes on your portfolio and be in a position to take action that best fits your own needs. #crash

— Weldon Boley (@WeldonBoley) August 5, 2024

Hmmm. 

They solved the problem. You cannot dump your stocks if you cannot log in.

— Big Fish (@BigFish3000) August 5, 2024

*Developing…