Windfall for financial Web sites amid global turmoil
{image-financial
Web
sites_20092008.jpg
news.oneindia.in}New
York,
Sep
20:
A
volatile
week
on
Wall
Street
drew
heavy
traffic
to
financial
Web
sites,
as
investors
hastened
to
check
their
portfolios
or
move
money
around
in
what
was
dubbed
the
worst
financial
meltdown
since
the
Great
Depression.
Online
brokerage
Scottrade
Inc.
saw
its
highest-volume
trading
day
ever
on
Thursday.
The
two
previous
days
were
also
among
the
eight
busiest
Scottrade
has
ever
had,
spokeswoman
Kelly
Doria
said,
and
overall,
orders
were
up
60
percent
from
the
same
week
last
year.
She
said
the
service
suffered
no
loss
of
availability.
Some
online
trading
sites
saw
a
slowdown
from
all
the
activity.
In
some
cases
Thursday,
the
sites
were
performing
as
much
as
12
times
slower
than
normal,
according
to
Keynote
Systems
Inc.,
a
San
Mateo,
Calif.-based
company
that
measures
Web
site
performance.
The company did not specify which sites performed the slowest, though it cited online brokerage E-Trade Financial Corp. as one that held up well. In some cases, trading sites' performance slowdowns meant they were operating at only 95 percent availability - meaning 5 percent of users couldn't complete what they wanted to do.
The week has been extremely volatile, beginning with massive losses Monday as investors woke up to two storied financial firms gone in a buyout and a bankruptcy. There was a rebound Tuesday, another plunge Wednesday and rallies on Thursday and Friday.
Charles Schwab Corp., the nation's largest discount brokerage, "definitely saw higher-than-usual traffic this week," said spokeswoman Sarah Bulgatz in an e-mail. But she added that efforts to add capacity "seemed to have paid off" - with the exception of "some minor issues" at the market open Friday due to very heavy volume. These issues have since been resolved, she added.
At investment management company Vanguard Group, online activity was busy Thursday, about what the company sees during tax season, said spokeswoman Rebecca Cohen. She said investors log on to the site to check their accounts "any time there is volatility" in the markets.
Hitwise, an Internet traffic-monitoring service, said visits to online broker-dealers and financial news Web sites like Yahoo Finance have up been by about a third this week, with attention steadily increasing as the week progressed.
The financial turmoil didn't appear to be causing online versions of runs on banks. Keynote's index of banking sites - which include JP Morgan Chase & Co., Citibank as well as troubled Washington Mutual Inc. - did not show any significant issues or slowdowns, White said.
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