The Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange (TTSE) has undertaken several initiatives geared towards improving the stock market infrastructure. These include among other things:
The Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange (TTSE) has undertaken several initiatives geared towards improving the stock market infrastructure. These include among other things:
- The establishment of a central depository, the Trinidad and Tobago Central Depository (TTCD) in 2003 which has served to create a more efficient and modernized system for the clearing and settlement of securities transactions. With the introduction of the TTCD, Trinidad and Tobago moved away from a paper-based, manual system of settling securities transactions to a computerized book-entry system;
- The implementation of electronic trading on March 18, 2005;
- The introduction of a bond trading platform for Government bonds (GORTT) on January 28, 2008;
- The move from a 3-day to 5-day trading week on April 1, 2008
- The amendment of TTSE Rule 227 resulting in Volume Weighted Average Price (VWAP) being adopted as the method for determining the closing price of listed securities. With VWAP, the closing price is calculated as the total value of shares traded in the day divided by the total volume of shares traded in the same trading day. If there are no trades in the security, the closing price will be the same as the closing price of the previous day. The change to VWAP took effect from June 6, 2011;
- The execution of the Caribbean Exchanges Network (CXN) Access Agreement on June 20, 2011. As a party to the CXN Access Agreement, the TTSE has agreed to allow brokers/traders registered in Jamaica and Barbados to trade on the TTSE, subject to them meeting the registration requirements of the Commission and operating in accordance with the TTSE Rules and the securities laws of Trinidad & Tobago. Similarly, local brokers/traders can register in Jamaica and Barbados and trade on their respective Exchanges.
- A Corporate Bond Market and a USD trading platform have been introduced which have thus far been used to list USD preference shares (SFCP) and mutual funds (BBLF).
