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A widespread outage of Bloomberg terminals crippled financial markets on Wednesday, preventing traders from accessing live pricing data and even forcing the U.K.'s Debt Management Office to extend an auction of government debt.
The $28,000-a-year service, which serves as one of the global financial system's main arteries, experienced significant delays starting Wednesday morning, with users worldwide reporting an inability to execute trades due to the absence of real-time pricing information, according to the Financial Times.
"We've been told not to trade. I can't remember this level of non-functioning," said one London-based fund manager, who witnessed the rare disruption to the normally reliable system.
The impact on market activity was immediate. Another trader questioned the feasibility of participating in markets without access to critical data: "Would you bet on a match that you can't see or know the score?" adding that trading volumes had noticeably declined as a result.
Bloomberg's help desk acknowledged the problem at 9:55 a.m., stating, "We're currently experiencing a global terminal issue, and our engineering team is actively working to identify and resolve the problem."
The message continued with an apology: "I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, and we truly appreciate your patience and understanding in the meantime."
The terminals, recognized by their distinctive black and orange interface, have become essential infrastructure for financial professionals since the company was founded 35 years ago by billionaire Michael Bloomberg.
They provide pricing and analytics on stocks and bonds worldwide and function as a crucial messaging platform for the financial community.
While the Bloomberg instant messaging service—known as IB—reportedly continued functioning normally, the outage severely disrupted workflow across financial institutions.
One portfolio manager at a large asset management firm lamented the broader impact: "This is so frustrating ... I am unable to run my day-to-day process. Not only trades, I have a presentation coming up where I need spreadsheets that are Bloomberg-based to work."
By 10:15 a.m., some users reported partial restoration of their service, though with noticeable lag in pricing data. Recovery appeared inconsistent, with one investor noting varying degrees of functionality across terminals within the same institution.
The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the cause or expected duration of the outage.
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