An Intro to Stock Trading: The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) Today

Do you have what it takes?

Written by Maya Sokolovski, Staff Writer

http://www.flickr.com/photos/squirrel_brand/4921747066

Have you ever tried trading on the stock market? It involves more than just reading a popular guide to the best companies to invest in written by a so-called expert. It takes a certain tolerance level for risk, a certain threshold for pain at potential losses, a certain financial and mathematical grounding in how stock exchanges work, and a certain insight into how well companies are managed and run. In short, it involves taking risks and doing the research. While I can’t help you with the first one—risk tolerance is mostly an inherited trait—the second one is fairly straightforward to implement: start by reading the papers.

Newspapers are one medium to find the information you need; it’s not the end-all-be-all by any means, but the news talk surrounding companies and industry sectors goes a long way in influencing changes—measured at their most basic in buys, sells, and holds—in the stock market. At the same time, the news reflects the changes that are already happening, as they happen, or retrospectively. So let’s begin by reading the news.

What do the news outlets have to say about the Toronto stock market? For one thing, as the month of May saw China’s economy slowing down and the US not doing much better with a sharp decline in the creation of new jobs, the Standard & Poor’s/Toronto Stock Exchange (S&P/TSX) composite index suffered a steep loss of 152.01 points last Friday. Recovery from the 2008/2009 global recession is ongoing but very slow; experts predicted a modest increase of 158,000 in new jobs for May, but the latest data show that a mere 69,000 jobs were created during the month. Lastly, the Canadian dollar remained at a low of 96.21 cents US, a level at which it has remained for a bit over five months now.

[pullquote]News talk surrounding companies and industry sectors goes a long way in influencing changes[/pullquote]As you can see, world economic events—and news reporting of world economic events—factor in when examining trends on the stock market of a given city or country. But things get clearer and more connected the closer you zoom in on them.

Which companies saw the most trading activity last Friday on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the TSX Venture Exchange markets? Here are just a few:

GoldQuest Mining Corp. (stock symbol: GQC), a mining company, saw an increase of 8.82% (up by 6 cents) in its share price, clocking in at 74 cents a share.

Manulife Financial Corp. (stock symbol: MFC), in the insurance industry, saw its stock decrease by 5.57% (down 62 cents), with the share price at $10.51.

Cequence Energy Ltd. (stock symbol: CQE), a company concerned with oil and gas, recorded a decline of 9.84% (down 12 cents) to $1.10 per share.


The Toronto Stock Exchange, as we saw, declined by 152.01 points to a total of 11,361.20. The TSX Venture Exchange, on the other hand, went up by 1.86 points to 1,291.59.

Think you’ve got what it takes to trade on the stock market? If you’ve studied the markets and the industries, if you’ve got the education and the financial savvy, and, importantly, if you’ve got some unused capital that you’d rather invest than save or spend, then considering studying the ins and outs of the stock market. With great risk comes great reward, and your next buck may just be earned from trading.

ARB Team
Arbitrage Magazine
Business News with BITE.

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