Home Breadcrumb caret Industry News Breadcrumb caret Industry Equity trading surged in Q1 New data from IIROC shows trading volume was up almost 50% compared to Q4 By James Langton | April 13, 2020 | Last updated on April 13, 2020 1 min read © Monsit Jangariyawong / 123RF Stock Photo Canadian equity markets registered a massive surge in trading activity in the first quarter, according to new data from the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC). The self-regulatory organization has published first-quarter trading data for all of the exchanges and alternative trading systems that it oversees. The value traded across all markets reached $539.6 billion in March, up 75.9% from the previous month, and up by more than 80% from the same month in 2019. In quarter, the value traded topped $1.1 trillion, up 55.1% from the previous quarter, and 37.6% from Q1 2019. Trading volume was up 45.9% in Q1 to over 81.5 billion shares. The number of transactions jumped by 63.4% from Q4 2019. Total messaging activity more than doubled in March to 91.3 million, up from 41.1 million in February. The markets averaged 37.2 million messages per month in 2019. James Langton James is a senior reporter for Advisor.ca and its sister publication, Investment Executive. He has been reporting on regulation, securities law, industry news and more since 1994. Save Stroke 1 Print Group 8 Share LI logo