Canadian stock market activity soared in February as the investor frenzy accelerated by a social media–based movement sent shares of companies like BlackBerry soaring.
Total volume on all TMX equity markets — the Toronto Stock Exchange, TSX Venture Exchange, TSX Alpha Exchange and Montreal Exchange — rose to 26.2 billion in February, up from 20.6 billion in January and 12 billion in February 2020.
The value of transactions increased 10.9% to $251.8 billion compared with January as the number of transactions in February climbed 15.6% compared with the first month of the year to nearly 35.9 million.
The average daily volume in February was 1.38 billion, with nearly 1.9 million transactions valued at a total of nearly $13.3 billion.
Total volumes in the first two months of 2021 doubled to 46.8 billion compared with the same period in 2020, while the number of transactions increased 46% to over 66.8 million. The value of transactions totalled nearly $478.8 billion, up 34%.
Canada’s largest stock market, the TSX, accounted for 79% of the total transactions in February and 87% of the total value.
There were an average of 1.5 million transactions a day, valued at a total of $11.5 billion, up from 1.26 million in January worth nearly $10 billion.