DLJ Direct site crashes
The Internet unit of investment bank Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette suffers a two-hour site outage that causes some customers to wait 30 minutes before executing trades.
Jersey City, N.J.-based DLJ Direct's automated telephone-trading system also was brought down by a system glitch, which began at 9:30 a.m. PST and lasted until about 11:45 a.m., a company representative said. To process a trade, customers had to call a DLJ broker, and the high volume of calls was causing half-hour delays, the representative added.
The glitch originated with the company's "clearing vendor." DLJ Direct contracts with a company to help execute online trades and perform some of the back-end operations, said DLJ president Glenn Tongue. He declined to identify the company.
As online trading attracts a growing number of investors, the pressure on Web sites has pushed many operating systems to their limits.
Last Wednesday, Charles Schwab suffered an hour-long outage of its Web site and automated telephone system.
DLJ Direct was one of the first online brokerage houses, launching an online financial network more than a decade ago. The company has more than 347,000 active customers.