Margin Call
More than 315,000 people use Bloomberg terminals around the world.
Because the outage happened around 3 a.m. EST, most of the people affected were in Europe, where markets were just opening, and Asia, where they were just closing.
One Hong Kong-based banker laid it out in an interview with The New York Times' Chad Bray and Neil Gough: "What I miss is the instant Bloomberg chats, which I rate higher than trading or data feeds. The fact is, Bloomberg connects 100 percent of the Street, and all that human intelligence is what makes markets hum."
Unable to execute trades or make deals, frustrated traders, bankers, and other finance pros took to social media to vent - and to have some fun.
The chat feature was a recurring theme:
It's a disaster when Bloomberg is down. Two traders sitting at the same desk actually need to talk to each other instead of using BBG chat.
- Random Jog (@RandomJog) April 17, 2015
The one function used predominantly on the Bloomberg terminal is not charts, nor analytics, but chat. #bloombergcrash
- Alex (@a_margiotta) April 17, 2015
When a closed community backfire and financial chat is not open nor standalone - you get this #bloombergdown pic.twitter.com/55dVOvwxCA
- Martin Mansson (@TRfinancetweet) April 17, 2015
Bloomberg back but IB still down...still impossible to trade bonds without a chat function! No way I'm actually phoning anyone..
- 2and20 (@2and20) April 17, 2015
But eventually, to everyone's apparent relief, the chat function - and all other Bloomberg functions - were restored:
Bloomberg is back, Wall Street taken off suicide watch, big banks scrap plans to use tinder instead of bbg IB for the day
- Kevin Weldon (@mkt_strctr_guy) April 17, 2015