Coats is going to be given a report card. A task force has been established by the Ontario Securities Commission to review the Canadian Over-the-Counter Automated Trading System and to determine if and when it should be upgraded to a fully automated system.
The 11-member committee is expected to consider automating coats so that the trade data are available to the public instantly. At present, such data are available only at the end of the day, when they are transmitted to the media, and dealers still phone each other to get the best quote. Coats is on-line only for changes in the bid and ask prices of unlisted stocks for which there are market-makers.
Introduced in April, 1986, coats is a computerized information network which helps unlisted companies (most of them juniors) raise risk capital by making them more visible. It is operated and regulated by the osc, while the Toronto Stock Exchange supplies the computers needed.
About 325 stocks are now quoted on coats. In May the system averaged 2.7 million shares per day at a value of about $14 million (including the unlisted industrials), compared to 1.3 million shares a day at a value of about $8 million one year ago.
Late last year the osc set up a new reporting system that shows a stock’s high, low and closing price for the day. Previously only the close and volume were given. Task force members
Members of the task force include: Keith Boast, vice-president of listed company and member regulations at the tse; J. C. Matthews, director of cats (Computer-assisted Trading System) at the tse; Court Bracken, president of W. D. Latimer Co.; William Cara, vice-president and general manager of Canarim Investment Corp. in Toronto; George Lennon, vice-president and director of over-the-counter trading for Wood Gundy; Jeff Lipton, a lawyer in corporate finance for Midland Doherty; Thomas Petroff, assistant deputy director, market surveillance, at the osc; Edward Thompson, president of Mingold Resources; and W. S. Vaughan, a partner with Aird & Berlis. The task force will be chaired by Ermano Pascutto, director of the osc. John Leybourne, deputy director of surveillance at the osc, has been the chief spokesperson for coats. But he is about to leave his post upon being appointed president of National Quotes, a holding company with two wholly-owned subsidiaries. They are: coats Directory Publishers, which publishes directories on publicly traded stock in Canada; and casdaq (Canadian Securities Data and Quotations), an electronic arm. His replacement at the osc has yet to be announced.
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