Primary equities market

Toronto Stock Exchange

Located in Toronto, Canada’s largest city, the TSE is the country’s principal exchange and carries the Canadian listings for many Fortune 500 companies. The TSE unofficially began in 1852 when a group of business men gathered together to form an Association of brokers. No official documentation of them actively trading is recorded. The Toronto Stock Exchange was officially established in 1861 when a resolution was passed at the Masonic Hall and the exchange was instituted.

Trading began slowly with daily half hour sessions where a limited number of trades were executed. Now the TSE is considered as one of the three largest exchanges in North America was the first to introduce many innovations to the world of stock trading. The world's first Computer Assisted Trading System (CATS) was introduced in 1977 by the TSX. It was also the first to introduce decimal trading in 1996. In 1997 the Toronto Stock Exchange was North America's first exchange to switch all of its operations entirely to a virtual environment when it closed its trading floors. In 2000 the Toronto Stock Exchange became a publicly traded company and declared its first quarterly dividend as such in January of 2003.

Primary equity index

S&P/TSX composite

This index is a capitalization weighted index designed to measure market activity of stocks listed on the TSX. The index was developed with a base level of 1000 as of 1975. The companies in this index comprise about 71 percent of market capitalization for all Canadian-based companies listed on the TSX.

The S&P/TSX was up 14.5 percent in 2006, thanks to burgeoning mineral and mining company stocks. The index fluctuated with gains and losses in commodity prices throughout the year. But as the U.S. credit crunch has been evolving, stocks in Canada sank in November. The index was down 6.2 percent in November. In 2007, the index is 6.3 percent higher than its 2006 year end level.