TSX block list leaders

When you watch the monthly block stats, they start to lose their impact after a while. But using June as a snapshot, you can see how well National Bank is doing, for example. Certainly some of the banks appear to have pulled back their prop trading dollars, but the new team at National appears to have made this part of their business a definite priority! TD continues to lead in the big ticket share trades, while most of the independents continue to have a hard time breaking into the top 10 in either category. It is well known that anyone can drive up their stats, provided that they are prepared to do large liability trades…not something that independents ever want to do when the capital at risk happens to truly be their own.

Folks often overstate the importance of these figures, as so many trading dollars are predefined against the “grid”. That’s “brokerspeak” for how much a pension fund or institutional investor agrees to pay a broker each month (set in advance based on rankings, ideas and impact) for their research product. If you aren’t on the grid, you aren’t going to get much (if any) flow from the CDP, the HOOP, Fido, etc., etc.

TSX Block List Leaders by Volume – June 2007 Broker Name

GMP SECURITIES LIMITED 12.46%
BMO NESBITT BURNS INC. 10.64%
TD SECURITIES INC. 9.42%
NATIONAL BANK FINANCIAL INC. 7.71%
CIBC WORLD MARKETS INC. 7.49%
RBC CAPITAL MARKETS 6.98%
CANACCORD CAPITAL CORP. 5.43%
SCOTIA CAPITAL INC. 4.96%
MERRILL LYNCH CANADA LTD. 3.93%
UBS SECURITIES CANADA INC. 3.73%

TSX Block List Leaders by Value – June 2007 Broker Name

TD SECURITIES INC. 13.08%
BMO NESBITT BURNS INC. 11.81%
CIBC WORLD MARKETS INC. 9.99%
NATIONAL BANK FINANCIAL INC. 9.56%
RBC CAPITAL MARKETS 7.68%
SCOTIA CAPITAL INC. 6.23%
FIMAT CANADA INC. 5.10%
GMP SECURITIES LIMITED 4.86%
MERRILL LYNCH CANADA LTD. 4.79%
UBS SECURITIES CANADA INC. 4.34%

Courtesy of TSX Markets, a division of TSX Inc.

MRM