By Canadian Press

Canadian markets run by TMX Group close hours early, expected to resume Monday

Apr 27, 2018 | 3:59 PM

TORONTO — Canada’s largest stock exchange and other securities markets operated by TMX Group were shut down more than two hours early Friday due to undisclosed technical problems.

“We have identified the issue and are working to rectify,” the company said in a statement, without disclosing details.

“We apologize for the inconvenience. We expect to resume trading at regular hours on Monday, April 30, 2018.”

A spokeswoman for Toronto-based TMX Group said at 5:15 p.m. that another update would be issued through social media when more information was available.

A TMX official was also expected to brief the media on Monday, but details weren’t available.

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Besides the Toronto Stock Exchange, which primarily handles equities of some of Canada’s biggest companies, the company also operates the TSX Venture Exchange, the TSX Alpha Exchange and the Montreal Exchange, which is Canada’s largest market for trading derivatives.

The Canadian Securities Exchange, a much smaller operation under different ownership, was unaffected.

It will be difficult to determine the impact on investors, as some dealers and individuals could have switched their buy and sell orders to other markets that interlist Canadian stocks.

For example, BlackBerry Ltd. shares on the New York Stock Exchange closed at US$10.45, down 10 cents, at the normal trading time of 4 p.m., with below-average volume of about 2.1 million traded, according to NYSE data.

By contrast, BlackBerry shares last traded in Toronto at C$13.49 at about 1:39 p.m., with less than 480,000 shares traded — about one-fifth of the average daily volume of 2.3 million shares.

News of the unusual shutdown began to be distributed by TMX Group at about 2 p.m., a few minutes after the company became aware of the problem.

TMX announced at about 3 p.m. that it wouldn’t re-open its markets for the remainder of the session, which normally ends at 4 p.m.

The Ontario Securities Commission said it was in contact with TMX and would communicate with them throughout the weekend.

“TMX has indicated that they have identified the issue and will provide further details over the weekend. We continue to monitor and watch the situation closely.”

Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, a private-sector body that provides some stock market monitoring, said its mandate doesn’t include operations of the stock exchanges.

Companies in this story: (TSX:X, TSX:BB)

David Paddon, The Canadian Press