TD Ameritrade’s Thinkorswim Clients Miss Morning Trading

Some clients at TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (AMTD) weren’t able to get into their Thinkorswim accounts this morning.

“We encountered some issues just after market open this morning that impacted some of our clients, particularly those on our Thinkorswim downloadable trading platform,” Kim Hillyer, a spokeswoman for Omaha, Nebraska-based TD Ameritrade, said in an e-mail. “We were able to implement a resolution mid-morning, and clients were able to use all of the platform’s functionality thereafter.”

Rick Arroyave, a 48-year-old trader in Dallas, said he couldn’t log in to make a trade after the stock market opened. A message was displayed on the website for users with a phone number to call. He was able to access his account at about 10:50 a.m. New York time.

“It’s an absolute mess,” said Arroyave, who’s been using Thinkorswim for about five years to trade stocks, options and futures. “I’m going to have to look at alternatives because this is not reliable.”

In 2009 TD Ameritrade bought options brokerage Thinkorswim Group Inc. for $749 million to expand beyond equities. The online broker transferred more than 250,000 Thinkorswim accounts to the TD Ameritrade platform in August. Some clients experienced issues with electronic trades in August following the integration.

To contact the reporter on this story: Margaret Collins in New York at mcollins45@bloomberg.net. Alexis Leondis in New York at aleondis@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Rick Levinson at rlevinson2@bloomberg.net.