In the period of the first few sentries in the Canada the main investments were coming from the London capital market. Only in the middle of nineteenth century the Canadian Government, railway, banks and mining stocks and bonds began to emerge.
In 1852 the group of Toronto businessmen formed the Association of Broker that could be informally considered as an event of foundation of Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE). There are no official records of this event and 1961 is the year when the Toronto Stock was officially declared by twenty four businessmen at the Masonic Hall. The trading stock exchange was not active at that time - only few companies were listed, only half of hour it was opened and only two-three transactions (trades) per session were executed.
In 1879 – sixteen years later – the
Toronto Stock Exchange was formally incorporated and the trading activity on the exchange started to grow. In 1914 because of the First World War in the Europe the trading was stopped for three months. After that the Canadian government realized that the Canadian stock market cannot rely solely on the Europe and in particular on
London Stock Exchange. Since then the Canadian Government started to issue its own bonds by selling them on the Canadian and American markets. This has pushed the Canadian Stock market to a new level and by the end of twenties the trading volume on TSE advanced above ten million transactions per year.
The TSE took another hit during the Great Depression in 1930s. The tough economic time pressed Toronto Stock Exchange To survive in the economic crisis, the Toronto Mining Exchange (TSME) to join to Toronto which make TSE third largest stock exchange in North America.
Another merge happened in 1999 when Montreal Exchange (ME) and TSE made an agreement to trade all preferred stocks on TSE only. At the same time the Canadian Venture Exchange (CDNX) was established from Vancouver and Alberta Stock Exchanges.
In 2001 the Toronto Stock Exchange acquired the Canadian Venture Exchange (CDNX) and was renamed in TSX Group. Later in 2008 TSX Group Inc was renamed into TMX Group Inc.
At the current moment TMX Group Inc. is the biggest Canadian Stock Exchange. To track the performance of this exchange the Standards & Poors has developed
TSX composite index which became the main index that reflect the economy in Canada and allows to see and analyze sentiment on the Canadian stock market.
