Back in September 8, 2006, before I truly started investing, this Insider Trade Summary Report was enacted for end-of-day information. This trade information would only show if it was on an official exchange and not if, for example, the transaction was via Private Placement or an Alternate Exchange. The TMX site allowed you to input a symbol to find out whether a trade was completed or through a snapshot of the Top 10 Buys or Sells by Volume or Value.
On the Retail level (ie. regular investors like myself) we might not have looked at this information. If we did, the end-of-day TMX Insider Trade Summary was likely the fastest method. Perhaps if we wanted to dig deeper there is SEDI (www.sedi.ca, implemented June 9, 2003 - http://www.osc.gov.on.ca/en/19854.htm), but that is not as convenient for a quick snapshot.
Why would we Retail investors use it? In itself it really doesn't tell us much aside that someone within the company may be purchasing or selling a large amount of stock. We might be able to infer a level of confidence by Insiders in their company. The usefulness is also reduced because it is for end-of-day and does not provide historical or specific Insider seller information.
When you go to the TMX Insider Trade Summary site (https://app.tmxmoney.com/research/insidertradesummaries?locale=EN) a message shows:
Clicking the "View Notice" link brings you to the December 1, 2017 release (https://www.tmxmoney.com/en/pdf/insider_trade_notice.pdf) states:
"December 1 2017
TSX, TSXV and ALPHA would like to announce that the securities regulators have approved our request to revoke orders imposed on TSX, TSXV and ALPHA that require the public dissemination of insider trading marker summary reports (“Insider Trade Marker Report”) on an end of day basis (“Regulatory Orders”).
TSX, TSXV and ALPHA will cease publication of the Insider Trade Marker Report & Insider Trader Marker Corrections files effective Mar 1, 2018 in order to respect the 90-day notification period applicable to this data product.
The decision to seek revocation of the Regulatory Orders was the result of a public comment process
spearheaded by TSX, TSXV and ALPHA in response to client feedback. TSX, TSXV and ALPHA published the Request for Comments [https://www.tsx.com/trading/toronto-stock-exchange/trading-rules-and-regulations/other-requests-for-comments] to broadly consult on the relevance and usefulness of the Insider Trade Marker Report. This resulted in seven comment letters that were substantively aligned in the view that these reports are detrimental to large security holders because the published information can be used to disadvantage investors when acquiring or disposing of a large position.
TSX, TSXV and ALPHA thank all participants for their participation in this process. The discontinuation of the Insider Trade Marker Report was a joint industry effort and TSX, TSXV and ALPHA are proud to have helped facilitate this.
For more information, please contact the datasales@tmx.com"
The article links to this page "Other Requests for Comments" (https://www.tsx.com/trading/toronto-stock-exchange/trading-rules-and-regulations/other-requests-for-comments), which provides a summary of the process and the updates relating to the discontinuation of the Insider Trading Summary Report.
Reading the material it seems the 8 commenters provided feedback essentially stating the Summary Report no longer supports the initial purpose of levelling the playing field; as short term traders can utilize the information for short term gains. They claim is large security holders have been materially impacted as they cannot sell or buy large positions without detection by these short term traders thereby creating a disincentive for them. In fact they say it may push them to move trades to the US Markets.
You can read more of their reasoning here on the "Summary of Comments": https://www.tsx.com/resource/en/1519
Perhaps for large institutional investors this Insider Trading Summary Report was damaging, but for Retail it was our most up to date and quickest view of what was happening to our personal holdings. Seems to be quite unfortunate that this piece of information is now missing.
