May 21, 2021
Equities Notice 2021-010

TMX Group

TMX Equity Trading Notice

TSX DRK Conditional Orders Filed for Regulatory Approval

TSX DRK (TSXV - TSX DRK), Canada's fastest growing dark pool, is excited to launch Conditional orders on all TSX and TSXV listed securities. TSX DRK Conditional orders will allow members to source price improving, block sized liquidity, while minimizing market impact. The implementation of the Conditional order functionality is subject to regulatory approval.

In order to enhance block midpoint liquidity and minimize market impact, TSX DRK will enforce a minimum order size of Global Minimum Size either (a) greater than 50 boardlots and greater than $30,000, or (b) greater than $100,000 in value. The Conditional order book will not interact with orders in the visible Central Limit Order Book. Only participants who entered Conditional orders can see the size of the order and the price which they entered; the contra side of a Conditional order will not have any visible information. When there is a potential contra side match, our trading system will send an invitation to each applicable participant to ‘firm up' the desired volume and price at which they wish to trade. Participants will have 0.5 seconds to ‘firm up' their orders.

All Conditional orders will execute at NBBO mid-point. Participants, at their election, may opt-in to interact with the dark book (DRK) to fill any remaining unfilled portion of the Conditional order. If there are no matches in the DRK book for the remaining order, the remainder will be cancelled. Participants may also elect to opt-in to have their DRK orders interact with Conditional orders. While the Conditional order is being firmed up, the DRK order will not be held, locked or removed from the book and can continue to execute against contra dark and visible liquidity. If a participant has opted-in to have its DRK orders interact with a Conditional order, such an order must (a) meet the Global Minimum Size (b) will not receive an invitation to ‘firm up', and (c) will execute at the midpoint if there is a contra side Conditional order match. In addition, the TSX will have the ability to disable a participant's ability to enter Conditional orders if TSX determines, in its sole discretion, that Conditional orders are being misused by such participant.

We anticipate that Conditional orders will be available for testing within the GTE environment in Q3, 2021 and are expected to be available within the production environment during Q4, 2021. This functionality has been filed for regulatory review and a Request for Comment has been published. Members are encouraged to provide their views and feedback on the proposed enhancements. The public comment period ends on June 21, 2021.

For more information regarding this notice, please contact the Account Management Team.