Morgan Stanley Wealth Management’s technology systems crumpled today, preventing brokers and clients from viewing account information and placing orders.

“[O]rder entry and order status continues to experience issues and may be unavailable,” the company said in a message sent to wealth management “field and operations” employees at 12:49 pm Eastern Standard Time.

In a subsequent message, the firm told advisors that “multiple applications are experiencing latency or may be unstable. Technology is aware and investigating.”

According to Advisor Hub, “[t]he outage began around 11 a.m., according to two advisors. A customer representative at a call center said around 2:00 pm that the company was hoping to have the system operating within two hours, which would be near the close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange.”

Clients using mobile apps received a message that “service is temporarily unavailable.”

One client told AdvisorHub that his online account showed a $0 balance, and a message attributing the glitch to “scheduled system maintenance.”

Inaccurate trading systems may lead to a host of significant problems jeopardizing investor accounts.  Phantom account balances, incorrect purchasing power, unreliable margin calls, not to mention the failure to buy or sell securities, may lead to devastating investment losses.

Aggrieved investors should save, copy, and print all firm error messages and anything related to trading computer glitches.  It is imperative to preserve documentation because of the difficulty of attempting to regenerate online viewings.

If you are an investor who has any concerns about your online trading with any brokerage firm, please contact attorney David Harrison at (310) 499-4732 for a no-cost and no-obligation evaluation of your specific facts and circumstances. You may have a viable claim for recovery of your investment losses by filing an individual securities arbitration claim with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).