TSX: Home to Canada’s Exchange Traded Funds for 25 Years

The exchange traded fund (ETF) has deep roots in Canada. In fact, ETFs are a made-in-Canada story. The world's first exchange-traded, index-linked product – the precursor to the modern day ETF – was launched on Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) when the Toronto 35 Index® Participation Units (TIPs®) was listed in 1990. In March 2000, the TIPs was merged into the iUnits S&P/TSE 60 Index Participation Fund, known as the "iUnits 60 Fund," and trading under the symbol XIU. Following several name changes in the following years, that fund is today known as the iShares S&P*/TSX 60 Index ETF, the largest Canadian-domiciled ETF with over $11 billion in assets under management (AUM), and among the top five most actively traded securities on TSX.

The Canadian ETF market has seen impressive growth over the past quarter century, and 2014 was a noteworthy year for the industry. The year ended with nearly $77 billion in AUM, up $13.7 billion from 2013 – the largest annual increase in the industry's history. In fact, the Canadian ETF market garnered double-digit annualized growth of over 20% last year. As of February 28, 2015, there were 354 ETFs listed on TSX, with 77 new products launched since January 2014. ETFs currently represent over 20% of total TSX listings. In 2014, 5.5 billion ETF shares were traded on TSX, representing almost 7% of all trading on the Exchange. Options on 31 ETFs also trade on Montréal Exchange (MX), a wholly-owned subsidiary of TMX Group.

TSX is proud to have been home to Canada's ETFs from the outset. The growth and proliferation of ETFs since then has been remarkable, yet the ETF market continues to evolve and this made-in-Canada story is still being written. As the industry continues to grow and new asset managers look to enter this space, TSX remains committed to supporting the growth of the Canadian ETF market.

Click on the video player below to hear Ungad Chadda, Senior Vice President, Toronto Stock Exchange talk about the ETF growth story:

For more information on ETFs, please visit TMX Group's ETF Centre on www.TMXmoney.com, its financial information website. The centre's ETF Screener classifies ETFs by asset class, region, style, size, sector or provider to help investors choose the type of product that best suits their investment objectives. The ETF Directory catalogues all TSX-listed ETFs based on asset class, sector and geographic region, among other search criteria.

*S&P is the trade-mark of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and TSX is the trade-mark of TSX Inc.