TSX Group CEO Takes Consolidation And Enhancement Messages To Brokerage Industry Conference

TSX Group CEO Richard Nesbitt said today that in the face of global exchange consolidation, TSX Group intends to be one of the three or four North American exchange groups to emerge following this round of consolidation. Competition, however, continues to intensify, and TSX Group continues to evolve and grow to stay ahead of the challenges facing today’s markets.

Mr. Nesbitt pointed out that TSX Group already serves customers from offices across Canada and operates three markets: Toronto Stock Exchange, TSX Venture Exchange and Natural Gas Exchange. It also has a significant ownership position in CanDeal, Canada’s leading electronic fixed-income market. Mr. Nesbitt said, “We’ve demonstrated our ability to expand across asset classes, successfully and efficiently integrate acquisitions, and contain our costs, while we add products and build the business.”

TSX Group has been enhancing the markets by introducing and upgrading technology to meet the changing needs of today’s traders. “Trading is becoming faster by the month, if not the week. Algorithmic trading is altering the relationship between orders and trades, aside from increasing volumes. Hedge funds are adding volumes, liquidity and, one suspects, increasing volatility.”

This year TSX Group has announced development is under way on a next generation TSX trading engine, designed to be a state-of-the-art platform, with leading messaging capabilities. The engine will be designed to meet the everchanging needs of the marketplace and response times in the single digit millisecond range, equal to, or better than, any exchange group in the world. As well, TSX unveiled plans for a smart order router. When delivered, this router will help domestic and international clients meet best execution obligations. And earlier this year TSX announced TSXPress™ - an innovative series of trading system enhancements aimed at optimizing execution speeds for algorithmic traders on its current platform. Also announced this year was ATX (Alternative Trade eXecution) a new high-speed TSX trading facility that will match firm order flow against in-house interest as well as the undeclared interest of other market participants. ATX is slated to be released at the end of the year. TSX also announced this spring that the Financial Information eXchange (FIX) gateway is in production and the testing and certification process for Participating Organizations has begun.

Copies of Mr. Nesbitt’s remarks are available on tsx.com or by clicking here