Clients of TD Ameritrade have taken to Twitter to express their outrage with what was a major calamity in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum. The company’s trading platform has been out for over an hour according to the timeline of the Twitter messages which flooded the web.
With the Brexit referendum causing a massive spike in trading volumes, the bulk of the retail FX and CFDs industry has navigated through the event relatively unscathed. In the case of TD Ameritrade, the ride has not been so smooth.
#tdameritrade craters under pressure. Cant execute any trades.... #thinkorswim
— Mir Alikhan (@miralikhan) June 24, 2016
The sheer volume of messages over Twitter shows that the Canadian brokerage company’s reputation has been affected materially. Clients of the company are outraged that they cannot close their existing positions nor enter new ones when the market was providing a lot of trading opportunities.
#tdameritrade costing me money right now with app not keeping up to spend and unable to access $uvxy options chain. — Andrew Pruske (@FlipandSell) June 24, 2016
A spokesperson for the company shared with the Wall Street Journal: “This morning’s heavy volumes across the industry caused some brief messaging and login delays. Everything is now functioning normally.”
After client issues were directed to the customer support lines of the brokerage, normality returned to the market. Market Liquidity was abysmal on Friday due to the turbulent trading conditions.
Lowest liquidity of 2016 (but you knew that) today = black $ES_F $SPY pic.twitter.com/levD4znECk
— Eric Scott Hunsader (@nanexllc) June 24, 2016
Despite the difficult financial market conditions, the systems of the brokers from the retail forex and CFDs trading industry have handled the flow very well. While spreads were higher due to the poor liquidity conditions, brokerages and their technology providers were widely prepared with increased margin requirements and enough extra capacity to handle the extra flows.
