TMX glitch didn’t boost Omega traffic

Director of Business Development Sean Debotte tells BNN it seems strange to Omega that most of the volume didn’t diffuse to it. “Essentially we feel that when there’s trouble in the market and traders are unsure, they tend to take their hands off the keyboard.”

If there were another glitch, after the TMX-Maple Group combination, Omega would be one of the only games in town, Debotte says. “It would be an excellent thing for us if there was a glitch. Today’s events highlight that there is a need for alternate trading systems in Canada.”

Today’s outage came on the same day the big exchange acknowledged the federal competition commissioner has serious concerns with TMX-Maple Group merger.

“It’s pretty interesting to us that the TMX Group post-merger would end up with Alpha, and CDS, and TMX Select and the TSX. That would pretty much give them 85 percent of all of the flow.” He says that’s not Omega’s primary concern because it is small and agile and can maintain a competitive edge.