Hi All ,
Just been to the VSE web site for a little light reading and after reading the promotional information therein,I am at a loss to understand why , with all this surveillance equipment in place and the sophisticated programmes they have, they never detected the alleged short selling by Global at the time they were acting for STS ,I've copied the relevant section below for your comments would appreciate some thoughts on here, after all I'm no expert in these matters
Regards
John
Vancouver Computerized Trading
With the final implementation of its award-winning Vancouver Computerized Trading (VCT) system in January 1990, the VSE became the first exchange in North America to convert from the traditional open-outcry auction method to a fully automated trade execution system. VCT greatly enhances the speed and accuracy of trades executed on the Exchange. It provides complete, real-time, online quotations, information on the depth of the market, accelerates the trading process and increases surveillance capabilities. Currently, over 250 active VCT terminals are located in member brokerage offices in Vancouver and across Canada. VCT executes trades in 1.25 seconds with a 99.42% reliability rating. New sophisticated functions were added to VCT in 1997, strengthening our ability to monitor trading activities. In 1997, 4 million orders were placed resulting in over 2 million trades. There were over7.1 billion shares traded valued in excess of 8.9 billion.
Market Surveillance
Post-trade monitoring of market activity occurs in the Surveillance Department. Predicated on automated trading, staff in Surveillance use sophisticated software developed specifically for the VSE to detect market improprieties. One surveillance tool allows the VSE to note trades and patterns of trading that are outside certain pre-set price and volume parameters. In such situations, staff will turn to other tools and make follow up inquiries to determine whether there are legitimate explanations for such trading.
One such tool was significantly enhanced shortly after the inception of VCT for determining who was on the buy side and the sell side of the market. It has proven to be invaluable in earlier detection of both market manipulations and other unacceptable trading behaviour and as a tool in the prosecution of such cases. The VSE is currently involved in a co-operative effort with the RCMP and other exchanges and securities commissions to develop a similar system for use across Canada. This will allow for standardization of information formats obtained through his system as evidence in other jurisdictions in Canada.
Another system allows staff to detect instances and patterns of high closing, a technique used to push the price of stock up in market manipulations. Yet another recent initiative of the VSE is one which permits an electronic replay of any part of the market in order to detect improprieties and will be very useful in disciplinary proceedings of market manipulations. All of these tools have been developed specifically for the VSE resulting in an electronic market monitoring second-to-none.
Surveillance will take any number of steps when it determines that inappropriate behaviour has occurred in the operation of a listed company or in the trading of the shares of a company, including halting or suspending a security from trading.
Member Regulation
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