The Vancouver Stock Exchange (VSE) was a

stock exchange A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for th ...

based in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. It was incorporated 1906. On November 29, 1999 the VSE was merged into the

Canadian Venture Exchange The TSX Venture Exchange is a stock exchange in Canada. It is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, with offices in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. All trading through the Exchange is done electronically, so the Exchange does not have a "trading f ...

(CDNX).

History

It was incorporated 1906 and was the third major stock exchange in Canada, after the

Toronto Stock Exchange The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX; french: Bourse de Toronto) is a stock exchange located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the 10th largest exchange in the world and the third largest in North America based on market capitalization. Based in t ...

(TSX) and

Montreal Stock Exchange The Montreal Exchange (MX; french: Bourse de Montréal), formerly the Montreal Stock Exchange (MSE), is a derivatives exchange, located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada that trades futures contracts and option (finance), options on equities, indices, c ...

(MSE), and featured many small-capitalization, mining, oil and gas-exploration stocks. In 1989, ''Forbes'' magazine labelled the VSE the "scam capital of the world." In 1991, it listed some 2,300 stocks. Some local figures stated that the majority of these stocks were either total failures or frauds. A 1994 report by James Matkin (Vancouver Stock Exchange & Securities Regulation Commission) made reference to "shams, swindles and market manipulations" within the VSE. Regardless, it had roughly C$4 billion in annual trading in 1991. On November 29, 1999 the VSE was merged into the

(CDNX) (now known as the TSX Venture Exchange), along with the

Alberta Stock Exchange The Alberta Stock Exchange (ASE) was a stock exchange based in Calgary, Alberta, established in 1913. It featured mostly mining, resource exploration, and oil sands stocks. The ASE was the original listing exchange for Bre-X, one of the bigge ...

(ASE) and the minor-cap stocks from the

Bourse de Montréal The Montreal Exchange (MX; french: Bourse de Montréal), formerly the Montreal Stock Exchange (MSE), is a derivatives exchange, located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada that trades futures contracts and options on equities, indices, currencies, ETFs, ...

(MSE). The trading floor of the old VSE remained as the trading floor of the new CDNX.

Rounding errors on its Index price

The history of the exchange's index provides a standard case example of large errors arising from seemingly innocuous floating point calculations. In January 1982 the index was initialized at 1000 and subsequently updated and truncated to three decimal places on each trade. Such a thing was done about 3000 times each day. The accumulated truncations led to an erroneous loss of around 25 points per month. Over the weekend of November 25–28, 1983, the error was corrected, raising the value of the index from its Friday closing figure of 524.811 to 1098.892.The Toronto Star, November 29, 1983

History

Rounding errors on its Index price

See also

References

Further reading