Order Types

The following order types and features are available on TSX Alpha Exchange:

• Anonymous Orders & Broker Preferencing

  On an order-by-order basis, a trading participant may elect attribution or anonymity. If attributed, the Participating Organization's unique numeric ID will be publically displayed on all associated market data feeds. If marked anonymous, the non-specific numeric "001" will be associated with the order for the life of that order, including after execution, in all market information displays. At the end of the day where a trade is executed anonymously, TMX will relay the underlying PO identity for that trade to CDS, in order for the trade to be settled.

  Broker preferencing is a unique feature of Canadian markets. In general, TSX, TSXV and TSXA follows Price/Broker/Time priority when matching orders. This means incoming orders to a trading venue to match with other orders from the same dealer ahead of similarly priced orders from other dealers, before time priority is considered. An order must be attributed (i.e. not marked as Anonymous) in order to participate in broker preferencing. Jitney orders are excluded from broker preferencing opportunities.

• Bypass Marker

  Orders sent containing the bypass flag trade only with booked visible volume, and avoid any non-displayed volume including undisclosed iceberg volume, and dark orders. Bypass orders may be single-sided or double-sided (a cross).

• Duration

  Orders can be entered as:

  • Day (expire at 5 pm)
  • Good Til Date (expire at 5 pm on a specific day),
  • Good Til Cancelled (expire at 5 pm 90 calendar days from entry)
  • Immediate Or Cancel (IOC) (Is eligible to receive a full or partial fill. Any portion not filled is cancelled immediately), or
  • Fill Or Kill (FOK) (Is eligible to receive a full fill and if not fully filled is cancelled immediately)
• Iceberg Order

  An order that replenishes the displayed order size as executions are received. A minimum of 1 board lot must be displayed and only the disclosed volume will have priority at the given price level.

• Limit Order

  An order to buy or sell at a specified price or better.

• Market Order

  An order to buy or sell that is to be executed immediately at the best available price.

• Mixed Lots

  An order that is mixed (with both a board lot and Odd Lot portion) is effectively split into two separate orders at the time of entry. The board lot portion trades normally in the TSXA CLOB and the Odd Lot portion is treated as an Odd Lot order.

• Odd Lots

  Orders with volume less than a standard trading unit are considered Odd Lot and do not trade in the regular CLOB. The majority of TSXA's traded securities are assigned an Odd Lot dealer. The Odd Lot dealer automatically guarantees a complete fill at the better of the Protected NBBO and the Alpha best bid or offer for incoming Odd Lot orders priced at or better than the opposite side's price. If the Odd Lot order's price is not marketable the Odd Lot order is displayed in the Odd Lot book and will trade at its limit price with the Odd Lot dealer once its price becomes better than or equal to the opposite side of the better of the Protected NBBO and the Alpha best bid or offer. If an opposite side Odd Lot order is entered with the exact same volume and priced at or better than a resting Odd Lot order's price, then the odd lots can trade against each other. For symbols with no Odd Lot Dealer, odd lots can only trade against each other in the manner described above and without regard to the better of the Protected NBBO and the Alpha best bid or offer. Odd lots only trade as "All or None" which means partial fills are not accepted. It is possible for the Odd Lot book to display orders with overlapping prices when resting odd lot orders can match on price but not on volume.

• On-Stop Order

  A limit priced order which resides undisplayed in the On-Stop book until its limit price is "triggered" at which time it becomes a regular limit order in the Alpha CLOB. An undisplayed On Stop Sell order is triggered when TSXA prices trade down to or through the limit specified on the On-Stop order. An On Stop Buy order is triggered when TSXA prices trade up to or through the limit specified on the On-Stop order. Once triggered the On-Stop order will trade in the CLOB subject to its limit with any untraded volume fully displayed at its limit price.

• Order Protection Rule Features

  The Order Protection Rule is defined in National Instrument 23-101, and requires all visible, immediately accessible, better-priced limit orders to be filled before other limit orders at inferior prices, regardless of the marketplace where the order is entered. The following orders/features are supported by all three TMX marketplaces to comply with the Order Protection Rule obligation.

  • Directed Action Order (DAO) - The private DAO marker is an implicit or explicit order instruction as defined in NI 23-101. Orders are assumed to be DAO by TMX for all orders provided directly unless otherwise explicitly instructed otherwise. DAO orders trade or book without any attempt to protect better-priced orders on away markets. The responsibility to prevent trade-throughs for orders considered DAO is assumed by the participant.
  • Protect Cancel and Protect Reprice Orders – Optional order instructions allowing clients to execute orders with protection from trade-throughs or locking/crossing the protected NBBO. A Protect Cancel order will execute on the receiving market to the extent possible before cancelling any residual volume. A Protect Reprice order will execute on the receiving market to the extent possible before booking any residual volume one tick away from the opposite side of the protected NBBO. Once the order is booked on the receiving market with the adjusted price, this price of the order will not change with subsequent changes to the protected NBBO.

  
  For more information, please see the Protect Cancel and Protect Reprice product sheet.

• Post Only Order Feature
  The Post Only order feature helps liquidity providers tighten the bid/ask spread by rejecting an order upon entry when it is otherwise immediately executable. This feature is intended for orders without immediacy where the trader's strategy depends on the order displaying as CLOB-posted liquidity without removing CLOBposted liquidity. For more information, please see the Post Only Product Sheet. Please refer to section 3.3.1 for information on Post only when used on Dark orders.

  Post Only is available on TSX, TSXV and TSX Alpha. It is an optional designation available for visible and dark orders and does not apply to orders in the opening or MOC sessions. A post only order is rejected if the order is fully or partially tradable against resting visible liquidity. When post only is applied to a mixed lot order, it only rejects the entire order based on whether the board lot portion is immediately tradable, regardless of the tradable status of the odd lot portion.

  Post Only instructions on TSX Alpha are accepted on new orders, order amendments and cancels. An incoming message with the post only instruction must have a volume equal to or exceeding the minimum post only volume requirement for that symbol, otherwise the message is rejected. Each symbol trading on TSX Alpha has a minimum post only volume assigned that will be reviewed and updated each month, and communicated through the start of day symbol status messages. Minimum post only volumes are also available on the TMX website (http://www.tsx.com/resource/en/1177/alpha-minimum-posting-size.csv). Participants should rely at all times on the minimum post only volumes contained in the start of day symbol status messages as the most current, as the posted .csv file may not always reflect changes made intra-month (e.g., as a result of splits, consolidations, and new listings). Messages containing the post only instruction are not subject to TSX Alpha's order processing delay (described in section 4.14.1).

  All durations including GTC, GTD are accepted, and the order must always contain a limit price. The Post Only flag may be CFO'ed to remove the flag after entry.
• Self Trade Management

  Similar to Self Trade Prevention, Self Trade Management checks for unique trading keys when two orders from the same Participating Organization or member Firm execute, however it suppresses the trade from market data feeds thereby preventing the trade from setting the Last Sale Price.

• Self Trade Prevention

  Self Trade Prevention is an optional order feature that prevents two orders from the same Participating Organization or member Firm from executing against each other in order to prevent a wash trade.

  TMX supports three types of Self Trade Prevention:

  • Cancel newest
  • Cancel oldest
  • Decrement larger and cancel smaller
• Short Marking Exempt (SME)

  UMIR rule amendments respecting short sales and failed trades have required the use of a Short Marking Exempt tag. Certain types of traders are not required to mark their orders as short, irrespective of their position (long or short) at the time of order entry. Instead, their orders (buys, sells, and crosses) are designated as Short Marking Exempt via the SME flag. The SME flag is indicative only, and has no effect on how the order interacts with the order book. All other traders enter Short Sell orders when appropriate, and do not use the SME flag on any order.

  The Short Marking Exempt tag will reside in the private layer of feed messages securing the anonymity of the designation. The Short Marking Exempt designation will automatically be added to unsolicited messages resulting from odd lot responsibilities.

• Short Sales

  An order to sell shares that are not owned directly or indirectly by the seller.

• Standard Trading Price Increments

  Standard Trading Price Increments (also known as "Tick Size") are based on the order's price level:

  Security Price Level	Standard Trading Price Increment
  Below $0.50	$0.005
  $0.50 and up	$0.01

• Standard Trading Units

  Standard trading units (also known as "board lots") on TSX Alpha Exchange are based on the security's previous day per-share closing price on the TSX or TSXV:

  Security's Closing Price	Standard Trading Unit
  Under $0.10	1000 shares
  $0.10 and less than $1	500 shares
  $1 and up	100 shares
  Convertible Debentures	$1000 face value

  *As defined in UMIR