TD Ameritrade Curbs GameStop trades as Frenzy Snags Brokers

Photographer: Gabby Jones / Bloomberg

Wednesday’s retail crush rocked online brokers, with several sites reporting disruptions and problems and one even limiting trading in hot stocks.

Charles Schwab Corp. was among those hit by downtime as traders were transfixed by wild swings in stocks of sharply short securities such as GameStop Corp. and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. Robinhood Markets, E * Trade and Morgan Stanley’s Fidelity have also been affected, according to Downdetector.com, which tracks user complaints.

Schwab’s TD Ameritrade has taken the rare step of limiting certain trading in shares of GameStop, AMC and others. The company said the high volume may have restricted access to its mobile app and urged its customers to use its other platforms.

“We took these decisions very carefully in an unprecedented context market conditions and other factors, ”TD Ameritrade spokesperson Margaret Farrell said in an email.

Robinhood said he was successful in resolving issues with his web application, while Schwab said some customers were having difficulty with e-commerce due to a technical issue.

Read more: GameStop rally hits new extremes as short sellers surrender

Schwab customers were experiencing problems amid “increased trade in the market,” spokeswoman Mayura Hooper said in an email.

Spokesmen for Schwab and Fidelity said the companies had fixed the issues with their platforms. E * Trade declined to comment.

(Updates with Schwab fixing the issues in the last paragraph.)