The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) is owned by the TMX Group and is promoted on the TMX Group website as providing “senior issuers with efficient access to public equity, liquidity for existing and new investors, and the prestige and market exposure associated with being listed on a world-class market.” Located in Canada’s most populous city, Toronto, the TSX is the largest stock exchange in the country, as well as being the third largest in North America by market capitalization. The TSX, together with TXS Venture Exchange, is the global leader with regard to listing of companies in the mining, oil and gas sector. Along with conventional securities the TSX lists various split share corporations, exchange-traded funds, investment funds and income trusts.
Although it is generally agreed that the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE) had its beginnings in 1852 as the Association of Brokers, there are no written records of this. However, on October 25, 1861, the Toronto Stock Exchange was officially created by twenty-four businessmen and was incorporated by an act of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1878. Apart from a three month shut-down during 1914 because of World War I, the TSE has traded continuously, steadily growing in size and shares traded. In 1834 the TSE merged with its primary competitor, the Standard Stock and Mining Exchange, and in 1977 it introduced a Computer Assisted Trading System (CATS). On April 23, 1997, the TSE converted from an open outcry platform to a fully electronic system.
It was in the year 2000, that the Toronto Stock Exchange made the change from a non-profit organization to a for-profit company, changing its acronym to TSX in 2001. May 11, 2007, stands out as a highlight in the history of the TSX as, for the first time ever, the main index of the exchange, the S&P/TSX Composite, traded above the 14,000 point level. Following a shareholders’ meeting on June 11, 2008, the name of the TSX Group was changed to TMX Group Inc., which incorporates the Toronto Stock Exchange, Montreal Exchange, NGX, TSX Venture Exchange, Shorcan, Equicom, Datalinx and CDCC.
