I've been tried to log into my Hargreaves Lansdown account for the last few hours. It looks like their system is not working presumably due to the vaccine related trading volume...
Is anybody else observing the same problem. This is the reason why I have multiple trading accounts because when the tough gets going HL seem to be useless (I remember seeing the same thing back in March).
What can I say about yesterday 's debacle,,, costly and frustration. What is the worse thing, there is not one decent platform registered in the UK for dealing/trading stocks with your ISA account in comparison to the states. Surely IB or one of the American large platforms could invest in the UK.
I do have an IG account which is better but still has issues investing/trading with your ISA account. Trading212 ISA has only a limited number of UK stocks.
I see HL struggled again this morning .... decided to walk the dog instead!
Chat facility down again on LSE. My watchlist this morning also took a while to show current SPs. It's bad enough trading at the moment without the problems going on there. Yesterday I waited ages for trades to be confirmed and had to manually calculate my cash to enable me to see how much i had to trade with. Shambles!
I thought Trading 212 had all the main market shares but some AIM shares are missing?
I've said it elsewhere I did not have any problems on HL yesterday afternoon or this morning although live prices were missing today.
Stockopedia prices were all over the shop yesterday.
Hi Alphaflight,
The HL app now has a live prices option hidden in the app settings (behind the cog icon in the top right corner), where the setting default is off.
Neil
Trading Problems: Finance Magnets
"Customers of Merrill Lynch, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade and Vanguard said they had experienced some form of issues or slowness on their brokers’ platforms, according to Downdetector app, which monitors over 3,000 services in 25 countries."
Not just in the UK; although it is clear that neither HL nor AJ Bell have invested as much in servicing their clients as they have with recruiting them. My experience of all the major platforms is that they are all lacking - only interested in customer recruitment not service or retention. Too large to care. When bank branches had managers my branch manager dealt with my complaint by pointing at the front door and saying: "You see that door, it's a revolving door, my disgruntled customers walk out and other banks' disgruntled customers walk in - good day to you".
Bonitabeach
I tried the mobile app as well on Monday. Wouldn't FaceId or validate password. Monday was an unusual day though. But would expect more from HL. They're not the cheapest platform.
It’s about 20 years ago when I was involved in some interesting work to bring an online trading site to the UK. My information will be well out of date – but it’s worth starting a discussion to perhaps help dissatisfied users.
I would guess that the major issue with not being able to log in and trade is server capacity. In the case of HL, I think that their business model relies upon investors holding unit trusts OEICs etc. these are not generally traded so I personally would not expect HL to have plenty of spare server capacity to deal with a surge of private investor dealing individual shares. It’s probably not their preferred business.
I think that IWEB and Halifax use the same platform. Here the business model is different as the share trading is priced competitively and most definitely to attract private investors trading. I would expect that IWEB and say III should have server capacity in all but extreme market conditions.
There used to be a further level of complexity insomuch the share trading websites needed to poll market makers to get the best quote. It goes without saying that you will not be able to trade if the system is unable to get a response from the market makers. You can only speculate as to why market makers would not be able to quote in such circumstances.
For non-SIPP trades it might be worth investigating Ideating. This is a very old business whose website is purely functional and probably never altered in 20 odd years. I seem to recall that it provided Direct Market Access which might help for certain shares.
As I said – not many answers but hopefully might help users.. I would also be interested if someone with more up to date information might post.
I have used all the sites mentioned above and found them to be quite good overall. Disclosure. I have no interest in any of the sites mentioned
I'm surprised brokers are not cloud based these days -if you suddenly need increased capacity - another pre-configured Amazon server should be spun up automatically (other cloud providers are available) disclosure - I have an Amazon web server :-)
Hargreaves Lansdown really let some of us down this week, they need to get their act together. I'm just glad I wasn't needing to desperately sell anything on Monday when their platform basically closed down - now that would have been scary.
BTW The most reliable platform I use is Interactive Brokers however I would not recommend this to people as it is tricky to use. I sometimes use it for options trading.
It is the brokers or the market markers that are causing the problems. You can't buy and sell if there are no market makers. The brokers may be able to deal with the volume but if there is no market then no trades.
Appreciate that Herbie, I don't understand how automated Market Makers are, but they could also spin up a few new servers when load dictates.
Iweb not working properly again. Nobody to talk to online or phone all day. My account shows yesterdays valuations. I did manage to get quotes on some stock with spreads of 50-60%. I turned down one insane quote, which they then tried to tell me might have been executed. Fortunately it wasn't. Absolutely disgraceful untrustworthy worth service I'm afraid
FOR ALL IWEB TRADERS Wow. Finally got through to someone at iWeb after exactly 1 hour and several attempts during the day. Apparently everyones valuation information on iWeb is screwed at the moment. This is because of an outsource company that provide that information. It doesn't however explain why that information of disruption cannot be displayed on their website or why it is nearly impossible to speak to anyone in customer support to find out what is going on. If you are not using IWEB I highly recommend you never do
Thats perplexing. I placed two orders at different times on IWEB yesterday and didnt have any problems with valuations or the actual trades. They were however for FTSE 100 stocks.
Hi Intuitive. Have you checked your account today? They have finally admitted there is a problem tonight. The problem seems to be intermittent and random. They are going to get someone 'senior' to call me but again they couldnt say when. The guy asked me to make up a word so whoever calls will recognise me. This is beginning to sound so stupid I can't believe its true myself. It was definitely the IWEB number I rang not the funny farm
Problems at Halifax as well. Portfolio valuations have not been updated today and still show yesterdays (Tuesday's) closing prices. Perhaps they use the same provider as Iweb? Not a disaster, but certainly very inconvenient.
One can still trade, although the spreads shown on the indicative bid/offer prices were crackers. However once you pushed the button to get a live dealing price, the quote normalised. I added to an existing position today.
Hi Simon Rowan - Yes I had just checked before posting - everything is fine.Perplexing.
Jonno - as put in my original post, IWEB and Halifax have the same platform. Not surprising that both will have similiar issues.
you providing a pass word/phrase for them to prove they are who they say they are when they call you is entirely sensible - this gives you confidence that what might otherwise be a random call from "your stockbroker" (think Nigerian Prince etc) is real.
'double dip peanut butter' or whatever. it's unlikely the elusive Nigerian Prince will think of that when calling you blind to offer you "hot stock advice".
otherwise, I entirely agree that the inability to provide up to date valuations of holdings after markets have closed for the day seems quite farcical. I have the exact same problem with AJB today myself (but not IG). I honestly can't believe this is 2020 - feels like IT problems from the 2000s are still here to party.
