Broker Preferencing Allowed on TSX Have you ever noticed how remarkably often blocks of shares trade on the TSX for any given company when the Buyer and the Seller are from the same trading house (e.g. TD Securities Inc., Desjardins Securities Inc., BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc., etc., etc..)?? TMX provides disclosure for this questionable feature on their website:
https://www.tsx.com/trading/tsx-alpha-exchange/order-types-and-features/order-types "Broker preferencing is a unique feature of Canadian markets. In general, TSX, TSXV and TSXA follows Price/Broker/Time priority when matching orders. This means incoming orders to a trading venue to match with other orders from the same dealer ahead of similarly priced orders from other dealers, before time priority is considered. An order must be attributed (i.e. not marked as Anonymous) in order to participate in broker preferencing. Jitney orders are excluded from broker preferencing opportunities."
That might sound reasonable on the surface, but it strikes me as patently unfair. It would seem to definitely benefit the broker in all cases, whereas their clients could either benefit or be harmed by the practice. I can't help but wonder why it is reportedly a "unique" feature of Cdn markets.
Would be interested to hear any other opinions though.