FNG Exclusive… FNG has learned that some traders on IG Group’s web trading platforms were experiencing intermittent issues with certain features of the platform in the hour following pharma giant Pfizer’s announcement regarding the efficacy of its COVID-19 vaccine trials.

Pfizer announced at 6:45am EST that its COVID-19 vaccine trial involving more than 43,000 participants experienced a greater-than-90% efficacy rate in preventing COVID-19 illness. That was a much better than expected result, immediately sent equity markets soaring (with the exception of quarantine-friendly stocks such as Zoom), gold diving, oil leaping, and all traders trying to figure out who were the bug winners and big losers.

While the Pfizer announcement came well before US equity markets opened on Monday, it hit the middle of the UK and EU trading day, and was accompanied by not just a large spike in financial instrument prices but also a surge in trading volumes.

And that surge has hit apparently overwhelmed some trading platforms.

As noted above, IG Group (LON:IGG) reported a “platform issue” on its web trading system soon after the Pfizer announcement. We understand that a small section of IG clients intermittently experienced delays in charts and some pricing, but the majority of clients were not affected. IG was able to implement a fix and returned the platform to normal trading within 30 minutes.

We also understand that IG rival Hargreaves Lansdown was having even more serious problems, with the company tweeting about 3 hours ago: “We’re experiencing intermittent service problems at the moment. We hope to have these resolved as quickly as possible. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused in the meantime.” Clients of the online broker were reporting that they weren’t able to log in at all to their accounts, with some being able to log in but not trade.

A Hargreaves Lansdown spokesperson told FNG:

“This is our busiest ever day for web and app traffic, and as a consequence some clients are experiencing some intermittent service issues. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

Similar platform issues were being reported at some of the leading US online brokers, with TD Ameritrade and Charles Schwab reporting temporary client login issues, and other brokers including Robinhood reporting certain platform and online glitches as clients flocked to online trading platforms at the beginning of the US trading day.

We understand from personnel at IG that trading volumes in the 30 minutes following the Pfizer announcement were up 8-10 times greater than daily norms, which IG’s trading people described as unprecedented. The trading volume spike was significantly higher than that seen during the ultra-volatile trading activity seen in late February and early to mid March at the outset of the COVID-19 crisis.