Canada’s Venture Exchange targets Americans for growth

Bloomberg

It’s a Canadian stock market, but the TSX Venture Exchange wants Americans to help fuel its growth. Traditionally known as a place where Canadians can buy shares of local junior miners, the exchange is branching out to other industries including technology. That’s an obvious fit for the head of the business, Brady Fletcher, who ran a tech startup before joining TSX last year.
But the dealers who facilitated trading have dwindled, as have the risk-hungry retail investors who bought and sold shares. Fletcher’s mission is to find new pools of capital among younger investors, including millennials, and in new markets like the US. There’s currently no American exchange focused on smaller companies — a so-called venture exchange — and part of Fletcher’s mission is to educate American retail investors about the opportunities to be found on the TSXV.
During the year that ended March 31, average daily trading volume at the TSXV jumped 84 percent from the prior one-year period, and the value of shares changing hands soared 212 percent, according to data compiled by parent company TMX Group Ltd., which also owns the far larger Toronto Stock Exchange. The TSXV has returned 1.7 percent in 2017.
Rebounding commodities prices helped drive the gains, but so did trading by foreigners, Fletcher said.