Toronto stock market falters as Greek party leaders begin crucial debt talks

The Toronto stock market gave up early gains late morning Wednesday with commodity stocks losing early momentum.

Meanwhile, traders hoped that Greece is close to arriving at a deal that will see it get a crucial second bailout to stave off bankruptcy.

The S&P/TSX composite index lost 28.12 points to 12,484.3 while the TSX Venture Exchange was down 2.47 points to 1,660.87. Lower prices for oil and gold helped push the Canadian dollar down 0.14 of a cent to 100.34 cents US.

U.S. markets were mainly lower with the Dow Jones industrial average down 16.16 points to 12,862.04.

Case of the fourth Stock Exchange

After nearly 30 months, the issue of Pakistan’s fourth stock exchange “PEX Limited” has come back to life as the Karachi Stock Exchange on Tuesday, withdrew its case for a stay order against PEX.

Leaving the legal jargon alone, which is difficult to understand and more so to interpret, knowledgeable sources suggest that the dramatic developments took place in the High Court of Sindh after the defendant Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) pleaded to the Court that the application be disposed of, as the present stalemate was not helping in the resolution of the issue, and that the Regulator would look into the case afresh (not the exact words, but something to that effect). In response, the counsel for the plaintiff (KSE) Khalid Anwar, who had lodged the suit against SECP, filed a statement saying that he does not press this suit, which resulted in an Order of the dismissal of the case.

Pre-Trade Verification System at the Stock Exchanges

The pre-trade verification system would be put into place from Monday (Sept 12) at the stock exchanges. That was one of the nine points on which market players and the corporate regulator had inked an agreement in the presence of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on August 19.

The system is universally believed to be a step that would strengthen risk management measures, which would eventually contribute to improving the health of the bourses. But the question that boggles many minds is whether the stock exchange has developed or acquired the required technology and software to introduce the system as early as on September 12 and whether all market players have adequate knowledge of how the system would function?