TMX today experienced a market interruption that affected trading on our equities markets: Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) and TSX Alpha Exchange (Alpha).
The issue was first identified at approximately 1:30 pm EST as TSX Alpha clients reported difficulty in receiving messages from the Exchange. As TMX initiated an investigation, the order entry process across TSX and TSXV began to fail as well. Trading on TSX Alpha was halted at 1:51 pm EST and trading on both TSX and TSXV was halted at 1:54 pm EST. As a result of the outage on TMX equities markets, Montreal Exchange halted trading on all Equity Derivative Instruments at 1:59 pm EST.
TMX's subsequent attempts to restart the trading system encountered further complications that could not be resolved in a timely manner during trading hours today. Due to the nature of the issue, TMX was unable to engage disaster recovery systems in time to ensure an orderly market re-open and closing session.
The interruption was caused by a system capacity issue within the messaging technology component of TMX's trading engine. To address this issue and in preparation for Friday's trading session, TMX has undertaken necessary measures to mitigate the risk of recurrence, including significantly increasing the capacity of this component. TMX confirms that this incident was not the result of a cybersecurity attack.
TMX also confirms that all systems are ready for the start of business on Friday, February 28, 2020.