Microsoft Outage Forces Traders at Banks and Exchanges to Phones, Fax
A worldwide Microsoft outage hit Outlook, Teams and Copilot, forcing traders in Singapore, Tokyo, London and elsewhere to work by phone and fax. Exchanges reported email problems, and Richemont briefly delayed its earnings release. Microsoft said it saw positive signs for server stability but had not restored services.
A worldwide outage of Microsoft Corp. software forced traders at banks, brokers and exchanges to work by phone, WhatsApp and even fax on Friday, November 13, 2026. The Microsoft outage sends traders back to older tools after Outlook, Teams and Copilot stopped working properly.
Microsoft was still struggling to restore access to some of its flagship software half a day after the disruption began. In a status update on Friday, the company said it was seeing "positive signs for server stability." Services had not yet been restored.
Exchanges and brokers hit
Euronext NV, Nasdaq Inc. and Deutsche Boerse AG said they were having email issues. In Singapore, traders reported that some banks could not complete financing deals. Japanese firms said trades were happening by fax, and Indian brokerages warned of delays in answering emailed queries.
The outage hindered workflows on trading desks and delayed corporate disclosure. Cartier owner Richemont briefly delayed the release of its earnings statement.
Phones back in use
Eugene Koh, a sales trader at CMC Markets Singapore, described the scene on his desk. "Everyone was back on the phone, and our WhatsApp chats were busier than usual," he said. A task that normally takes a second by email could now take a phone call and a few minutes.
Kenneth Goh, director of private wealth management at broker UOB Kay Hian, was traveling in Malaysia and could not get the market updates he uses to advise private clients. "It has been super irritating," he said. He added that if the outage crosses 24 hours, "we'd be in the red zone."
Settlement and liquidity worries
Trading itself was largely unaffected, according to Ryutaro Kimura, a Tokyo-based senior bond strategist at BNP Paribas Asset Management. The damage showed up afterward. "Confirmations backed up, creating settlement headaches for back offices," he said, adding that desks were still getting trades done by phone and fax.
Andy Kent, a London-based broker at Kyte Broking, said the outage affected trade processing more than the ability to place trades. He expects an impact on liquidity, because institutions will be less keen to trade until straight-through processing, the automated handling of trades from order to settlement, is working again.
Matthew Haupt, a portfolio manager at Wilson Asset Management, said the firm's small cap team told him some equity trading volumes had fallen during the blackout. Global markets were otherwise relatively calm, with S&P 500 futures little changed.
The disruption came at the end of a turbulent week that included the ousting of Nvidia Corp.'s Jensen Huang and a hot inflation print. Calvin Yeoh, a portfolio manager at Blue Edge Advisors, was blunt about it: "Outlook is the appendix of the modern financial operations world."
