Canada's stock market set to reopen after rare shutdown
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[April 30, 2018]
By Fergal Smith and John Tilak
TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's stock
exchange, the world's sixth largest, is set to reopen on Monday after
its operator said over the weekend that it fixed the error that halted
the market for several hours on Friday afternoon.
The rare outage on Friday disrupted Canada's stock trading, sending
investors to rival platforms, and had the potential to dent the
credibility of the exchange, fund managers and traders told Reuters.
TMX Group Ltd <X.TO>, which operates the Toronto Stock Exchange and
smaller Canadian trading platforms, said in a statement on Saturday that
the failure of data storage equipment caused the outage.
The saving grace for TMX, which has been vying to host Saudi Aramco's
mega IPO overseas listing, was that the glitch occurred on a low-volume
trading day and on a Friday, giving the operator the weekend to resolve
the issue.
Jos Schmitt, chief executive of rival operator NEO Exchange, said the
market went dark when the outage occurred. "There is a lack of real-time
market data in Canada and Friday's events demonstrate this is a big
problem," he added.
Outages can inconvenience investors and prove expensive for the
exchanges themselves. But many of Canada's blue-chip stocks are also
traded on U.S. stock exchanges, giving investors another avenue to
trade. Investors are hopeful that TMX has taken sufficient measures to
ensure the smooth resumption of trade at 9:30 a.m. (1330 GMT) on Monday.
"I suspect the TSX has undertaken many system reviews over the weekend
to ensure an orderly and smooth reopening of exchanges on Monday
morning," said Mike Archibald, associate portfolio manager at AGF
Investments.
Traders warned that another disruption could hurt confidence and fuel
anxiety.
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A logo for TMX Group, which operates the Toronto Stock Exchange, is
seen after the company announced it was shutting down all markets
for the rest of the day after experiencing issues with trading on
all its exchange platforms in Toronto, Ontario, Canada April 27,
2018. REUTERS/Chris Helgren
TMX said on Saturday the disruption was caused by a "hardware failure in a
central storage appliance of the trading system," and noted it was not the
result of a hack.
Asked for additional comment on Sunday, a TMX spokeswoman referred to the
company's statement on Saturday.
"Given it wasn't an overly heavy volume day on Friday, I suspect most market
participants will manage being able to execute orders early on Monday morning,”
Archibald said.
TMX's exchanges in Canada, which include the Toronto Stock Exchange, Toronto
Venture Exchange, TSX Alpha Exchange and the Montreal Exchange, account for
about 61 percent of trading, according to official data.
Canada's last major trading outage occurred nearly a decade ago, when a system
fault linked to data feeds shut down trading for a full day in December 2008.
"Stuff happens from time to time," said Matt Skipp, president of SW8 Asset
Management. "If it happened on an epic down day, it would be far more concerning
for professionals."
(Reporting by Fergal Smith and John Tilak; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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