Thinkorswim appeared to be down for hundreds of users on October 23. Many complained about the outage online. As per Downdetector, over 200 users were facing issues with Thinkorswim at the time of writing.
Thinkorswim is a trading platform suite owned and integrated by Charles Schwab. It was originally founded in 1999 as an options-focused online brokerage, and has evolved into a tools for retail and institutional traders who analyze markets and execute complex strategies.
Downdetector, which tracks internet outages, noted that most people were facing issues with the app, while some had troubles with the website and logging in. Users took to the comment section and social media to voice their complaints.
Thinkorswim down: Users complain online
One person on X complained about the outage saying “Yes. All thinkorswim platforms are down.” Another added “ToS down here - can't log into app, platform, etc.” Yet one more person said “Cant log in , first time in yrs.”
Also Read | Security flaws in PHP programming language sparks worldwide concerns
{{/usCountry}}Also Read | Security flaws in PHP programming language sparks worldwide concerns
{{/usCountry}}The issue appears to have started about an hour back. One person commented around 42 minutes prior to the time of writing that “ToS is down: desktop, mobile and web interface. Confirmed from multiple sources, and there's 40+ reports here.”
The unofficial Thinkorswim Reddit forum was also inundated with complaints. “3:20 EDT.... both IOS and desktop TOS is dead. Can't trade futures or even get quotes with the Schwab app/website.…My guess. Schwab is trying to drive all the traders away and keep only the ones that do plain equity shares...,” one wrote.
"Trying to trade Asia and London and saw "reconnecting" so tried to log off and on. Fully stuck now on "Installing Updates...". Can't even load the client at this point. It just resets and asks me to log in again on multiple computers. Totally screwed on PC and MAC. They need to fire their CTO immediately. This is absolutely abysmal IT. What a f***ing bunch of amateurs," another angrily remarked.
Is Thinkorswim outage linked to global PHP security issue?
Several websites went dark amid a mad scramble after reported vulnerabilities in a widely used programming language. Developers of the PHP programming language released urgent new fixes on Wednesday, to rectify vulnerabilities which had been present in their software for years, but were only recenrly uncovered using AI. They said all users were "encouraged to update immediately."
However, it is not known if the Thinkorswim outage is linked to this issue. Downdetector noted on its page “Some services may be offline while a global PHP security issue is fixed. Check the official website or social media of the service for more information.”