Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the TMX Group Limited Q2 2020 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Julie Park, Manager of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning for the second quarter 2020 conference call for TMX Group. As you know, we announced the results late yesterday, and a copy of our press release is available on tmx.com under Investor Relations. This morning, we are once again joining virtually and have with us John McKenzie, our Interim Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, and Paul Malcolmson, Managing Director of Investor Relations. Following opening remarks, we will have a question-and-answer session. Before we begin, I want to remind you that certain statements made on today's call may be considered forward-looking. I refer you to the risk factors contained in our press release and reports that we have filed with regulatory authorities. With that, I'll turn the call over to John.
Thank you, Julie, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for dialing into the call today. We are here this morning to discuss TMX Group's financial performance for the second quarter and for the first six months of 2020. Before we do, I want to start and talk about some of the business impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. I'd like to first acknowledge the importance of the immediate and sustained day-to-day challenges faced by people across Canada and all over the world working to cope with this unprecedented crisis. To everyone listening today, and on behalf of all of us at TMX, we hope you and your families are staying healthy and safe. Now, across the markets TMX serves, and in particular equity markets, the first quarter of 2020 was marked by severe turbulence and volatility.
TMX's number one priority at all times is to ensure we provide crucial continuity to stakeholders across our core operations and fulfill our role in keeping Canada's markets running. With the help of our partners across the industry and the dedicated efforts of our employees, we were able to successfully navigate the sudden and dramatic shift to a remote working environment. As the second quarter moved along and the realities of the new normal set in, TMX took important steps across our enterprise to adapt key processes while also striving to keep our priority initiatives on track. Despite the abrupt shift to the new virtual reality, teams in all of our business areas have worked hard to stay closely connected to our clients in order to help them adapt and overcome near-term obstacles.
The vision of our client-facing teams extends beyond seeking temporary or patchwork solutions during COVID-19. In fact, the rapid response to solving day-to-day challenges in 2020 has helped to inform and accelerate TMX's digital transformation and will ultimately enable us to better serve our markets long into the future. In a few minutes, I will update you on some of the key elements of our growth strategy and get into more detail on some of the initiatives that we have well underway and on the near-term horizon, all aimed at modernizing and enhancing our products and services. First, let's review TMX's first-half performance.
Paul will join the call in a few minutes to walk you through the details, and you will see as clearly as in any other period in our history, the second quarter and the first six months of 2020 reflect the resiliency of TMX's balanced business model and a proven ability to deliver positive results in the midst of market uncertainty. Revenue in the first half of the year was CAD 438 million, up 7% from 2019, driven by higher revenue from equities and fixed income trading and clearing, as well as Tradeport and our derivatives business. While daily uncertainty and volatility dominated news headlines early in 2020, market activity, and particularly equity volumes, remained the consistent story for TMX throughout a robust first half of the year.
Across all our equity venues, trading volumes were up 39% through June 30 compared to the same period last year, including a 48% increase in volumes traded on Toronto Stock Exchange, a 59% increase in TSX Alpha volumes, and another very encouraging sign, trading volumes on the TSX Venture Exchange were up 14% in the first half of 2020. In equities trading, while activity surged in the first half of the year, we continued our efforts to enhance our value proposition and ensure we remain competitive on the global stage. Last month, we introduced our TSX Market on Close, or MOC, modernization proposal. TSX MOC is the definitive source for equities closing pricing in Canada and serves to set industry benchmarks for mutual fund calculations, portfolio and index balancing, and index-related securities.
The new and improved MOC facility is the result of more than a year and a half of work by our equities trading team working in close consultation with a wide range of participants across our client community. The proposed changes to the existing model include features designed to increase liquidity and participation at the closest to market and align TSX MOC with global peers. The proposal is now out and will likely be published for industry comments by Q4 of this year. Now, turning now to Tradeport, revenue, including VisoTech, was up 13% in sterling and Canadian dollar terms over the first half of 2019, with a 7% increase in average trader subscribers and a 6% increase in average total subscribers. Following on the prevailing theme in our domestic markets in 2020, market volatility drove higher activity in both the European power and gas markets.
Volume through June 30, 2020, for power and gas products were up 24% and 20% respectively. Volumes were also strong in the benchmark European and Asian LNG contracts. Dutch Title Transfer Facility volumes increased 35% in the first half of 2020 compared with the first half of 2019, and OTC cleared volumes in the Japan-Korea marker reached record levels. Algorithmic power trading in Europe intraday markets continued to gain momentum as well through the first six months of the year. Intraday volumes on the EPEX Spot grew 23% compared to the same period in 2019. I want to turn now to an update on our progress on serving the needs of the evolving environmental, social, and governance, or ESG, landscape. As you will recall, our exchanges launched ESG 101 in the first quarter, a centralized resource to help TSX and TSX Venture issuers understand the fundamentals of ESG reporting.
In May, we published the inaugural TMX Group ESG report. In July of this year, TMX Datalinx announced the expansion of our suite of ESG indices that better enable clients to gain exposure to ESG investments and manage associated risks. On July 27, 2020, in collaboration with S&P, we launched three new ESG indices, including indices tracking the performance of the constituent companies of the S&P TSX 60 and the S&P TSX Composite, taking into account each company's ESG scores. Sustainable investing continues to gain momentum in the marketplace, and as investors of all types adopt new and increasingly sophisticated strategies, TMX will continue to evolve our approach to serve their needs. In our derivatives business, overall revenues were up 6% in the first six months of 2020, driven by an 8% increase in revenue from the Montréal Exchange and CDCC.
While MX volumes were 13% higher in the first half of the year compared to 2019, the prolonged low interest rate environment had a negative impact on MX volumes and revenues in the second quarter. Looking ahead, our derivatives team delivered an important new product to market in the second quarter, a significant accomplishment in today's operating environment. CORRA Futures launched on June 15, a new three-month futures contract based on the new benchmark Canadian Overnight Repo Rate Average administered by the Bank of Canada. A key objective of our team now is to build liquidity and support the growth of the product and help to establish Cora as a key Canadian interest rate benchmark. In capital formation, high volatility during the first half of the year presented less than ideal conditions for companies to raise capital.
As a result, the number of large additional financing transactions by existing issuers decreased compared to the first six months of 2019 and contributed to a 7% decrease in overall capital formation revenue. I think it's important to acknowledge the fact that even during unprecedented circumstances of a modern global pandemic, the entrepreneurial spirit continues to endure. We saw encouraging signs in the overall financing stats with an increase in the number of total transactions and dollars raised on TSX and TSX Venture. Last month, we were proud to welcome Dion Durham, a leading Canadian technology firm, to Toronto Stock Exchange via a successful initial public offering. The value a TSX or TSX Venture listing provides to companies at all stages of maturity goes far beyond the amount of capital raised during an IPO or any other additional transaction.
Our exchanges and really our entire organization work to support each phase of a public company's journey. Throughout this year, we have pursued various issuer support initiatives and spearheaded a sustained advocacy campaign to help our listed issuers and companies navigate this current crisis. In May, we were proud to usher in a new era in a long-standing TSX tradition by launching our first-ever virtual market open. For 20 years, the Toronto Stock Exchange market open ceremony has welcomed guests, primarily listed issuers, to our headquarters to open the market in celebration of corporate milestones and in recognition of some of this country's most significant business achievements. Perhaps even more so in challenging times, we feel that it is vital to provide a platform to showcase the great companies that fuel our country's economy and to shine a brighter light on the resiliency and strength of Canada's markets.
Our capital formation team continues to seek out ways to better serve our existing issuers and enhance the value of a TSX and TSX Venture listing. On the near-term horizon, we are planning to launch a centralized web-based platform to enable listed issuers to more efficiently interact with our exchange staff. More details to come later in the third quarter. Along with the release of our Q2 results last night, we announced a 6% increase in TMX's quarterly dividend from CAD 0.66 to CAD 0.70 per common share. This is our third dividend increase in the past 18 months and stands as a clear indication of our ability to generate value for clients and shareholders alike throughout challenging market conditions. Our payout ratio remains aligned with that of our global peers.
We remain confident that our continued commitment to executing our growth strategy will help to position us for long-term success into the future. In closing, I want to acknowledge the exemplary efforts of TMX employees. The collaborative spirit and relentless dedication of our people to solving challenges for clients across our business continues to fuel TMX's success. I can say it definitively, more and more our people are invested in our success. In fact, following the latest enhancement to our employee share purchase plan in Q2, we have reached a new high with an 81% overall participation rate, including 88% in North America. We remain excited about the opportunities in front of us.
We feel strongly that TMX's ability to adapt and evolve our approach to serving companies and investors during the COVID-19 pandemic will help to push the evolution of Canada's capital markets and enhance our standing among global markets as we emerge from this crisis. With that, I will turn the call over to Paul, who will provide you additional details on our second quarter results. Thank you.
Thank you, John. Before commenting on the results, I want to first say that I hope all of you and all of your families are keeping well through this unprecedented time in our lives. Now, looking at our results, revenues were up 4% from Q2 of last year. This was driven by a significant increase in equities and fixed income trading and clearing revenue, as well as by higher Global Solutions, Insights, and Analytics, or GSIA, revenue.
The increased growth was somewhat offset by a decrease in capital formation and derivatives trading and clearing revenues. Operating expenses were up 12%, or CAD 13.1 million over Q2 of 2019, almost entirely driven by net litigation settlement costs of CAD 12.4 million. EBITDA margin was 54%. Excluding this one item, our operating expenses were up less than 1%, and our adjusted EBITDA margin for the second quarter reached 60%. Diluted earnings per share were $1.19 this past quarter, down from $1.37 last year, with the largest factor driving the 18-cent decline being the net litigation settlement cost of $0.16 per share. Our adjusted diluted EPS, excluding the net litigation settlement cost and amortization of acquired intangibles, was $1.52, up 5% over last year. Looking at revenue, the continued high market volatility during Q2 drove substantially higher equities trading and clearing volumes.
The average VIX was over 34 in Q2 of 2020, compared with 15 in Q2 of last year. In equities and fixed income trading, there was a 36% increase in revenue in Q2 compared with last year, driven by a 56% increase in volumes across all of our exchanges. The impact from the higher volumes was somewhat offset by a less favorable product mix in Q2 of 2020 compared with last year. There was significantly higher trading in the Market on Close facility, where we do have fee caps, and therefore our capture rate on MOC trades was less than in Q2 of 2019. There was also an increase in fixed income trading revenue, reflecting higher activity in swaps and Government of Canada bonds. CDS revenue increased by 8% from Q2 of 2019.
Recoverable cross costs of CAD 1.9 million related to CDS's clearing operation, netted in Q2 of 2019, were included in both CDS revenue and SG&A expenses in Q2 of 2020. In addition, there were higher international revenues and higher clearing and settlement revenues due to the higher volumes in Q2 of 2020 compared with Q2 of 2019. These increases in revenue were partially offset by higher rebates. Revenue in our GSIA segment was up 7% over 2019, with increases from both Tradeport and our traditional data business. Revenue from Tradeport, excluding VisoTech, was up 11% in both Canadian dollars and sterling. Excluding VisoTech, revenue was up 9% in both currencies. This was driven by a 3% increase in trader subscribers and a 4% increase in total subscribers. We also saw the full quarter impact from an enterprise deal that was signed in Q1 of this year.
Revenue from our traditional data business increased by 5% from 2019 to Q2 of 2020, with higher revenues related to subscriptions, usage-based quotes, as well as colocation, partially offset by lower revenues related to underreported usage of real-time quotes in prior periods. The higher revenue includes a favorable impact from a weaker Canadian dollar relative to the US dollar in Q2 of 2020 compared with last year. The average number of professional market data subscriptions for TSX and TSX Venture products was up 2% in Q2 of 2020 compared with last year. For the Montréal Exchange, dubs were down 1%. Overall revenue from GSIA, excluding VisoTech, was up 6% in Q2 of 2020 compared with last year. Derivatives trading and clearing revenue declined from Q2 2019 to Q2 2020 by 11%, largely driven by the 9% decrease in revenue from the Montréal Exchange and CDCC.
This decrease in revenue was primarily due to lower revenue per contract attributable to an unfavorable product mix. On MX, there was a significant decline in trading in the BACs and in the 10-year Government of Canada Bond, or the CGB, futures contracts, which have higher capture rates than products such as share of futures. In Q2 2020, volumes on the BACs were down by 42% year- over- year, and the CGB was down 15%, whereas trading in share of futures increased by 519%. Overall, there was a 1% decrease in volumes on MX. In addition, there was a decrease of approximately CAD 1 million in revenue from Q2 of 2019 to 2020 relating to our agreements to provide transitional services to BMO Capital Markets. This ended on June 30 of this year.
Turning to capital formation, the trend we saw in 2019 and in Q1 around additional listing fee revenue continued in Q2. This was the largest factor driving the decrease in capital formation revenue of CAD 4.5 million, or 9% compared with last year. The number of transactions billed at the maximum listing fee of CAD 250,000 on TSX declined from 40 to 29, or by 28% from last year. There was also a slight decline in additional listing fee revenue on TSX Venture from Q2 2019 to Q2 of 2020. The other driver in the decline of capital formation revenue was the reduced revenue from other issuer services of CAD 2.2 million, or 24% compared to 2019. This reflected lower margin income from TSX Trust. There was also a decrease in recoverable revenue as some issuers postponed their annual general meetings.
As I mentioned, operating expenses were up CAD 13.1 million, or 12%, from Q2 of 2019, almost entirely due to the net litigation settlement cost of CAD 12.4 million, included within SG&A expenses. There was also an increase in recoverable costs related to CDS. As I mentioned, recoverable costs of CAD 1.9 million related to CDS's clearing operation, netted last year, were included in SG&A expenses in Q2. In addition, there were higher employee performance incentive costs, increased IT professional service costs, higher costs relating to managing our business during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as increased bad debt expense. The increases were somewhat offset by a decline in travel and entertainment expenses and consulting fees. In addition, there were strategic realignment expenses of CAD 1.3 million in Q2 of 2019, with no similar costs in Q2 of 2020.
Looking at our results on a sequential basis, revenue was down 1% from Q1 of 2020, largely attributable to decreases in revenue from derivatives trading and clearing, CDS, Tradeport, as well as other revenue. This was largely offset by increases in capital formation, equities and fixed income trading, and our traditional data business. Operating expenses in Q2 of 2020 were up CAD 10 million, or 9%, from Q1 of 2020. Again, the increase was largely related to net litigation settlement costs. There were also higher short-term employee performance incentive plan, recruitment, and COVID-19 pandemic-related costs, which were offset by lower salary and benefit costs and reduced travel and entertainment expenses. Income from operations decreased from Q1 - Q2, largely due to the lower revenue and the higher operating expenses. Looking at our balance sheet, we reduced our debt by about CAD 63 million from the end of 2019 to June 30.
We spent all the CAD 15 million to repurchase 140,000 of our common shares under our normal course issuer bid program through to the end of June. With the continued strong EBITDA in the first half of the year, our debt-to-adjusted EBITDA ratio was 1.9 x June 30, down from 2.1 at the end of 2019. We also held almost CAD 270 million in cash and marketable securities at the end of the quarter, which was CAD 85 million in excess of the CAD 185 million we target to retain for regulatory and credit facility purposes. As John mentioned last evening, our board declared a dividend of CAD 0.70 per common share payable on September 4 to shareholders of record as of August 21, representing an increase of 6%. At 46% of our adjusted EPS, this is well within our target payout ratio of 40%-50%.
I would like to turn the call back to Julie.
Thanks, Paul. Operator, could you please outline the process for the Q&A session?
If you would like to ask a question at this time, please press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. The first question comes from Melinda Roy with Deutsche Bank.
Good morning, everyone. Maybe we can start with some questions on the Tradeport business. We did see a decrease in both trader and non-trader subscribers versus Q1 levels. Maybe you can comment on the dynamic there and if you have seen a similar trend going into the third quarter. If you can give any update on Tradeport's expansion into the U.S. market with the Nodal Exchange partnership.
Good morning, Melinda. Thanks. Maybe I can just start off on the subscriber question that you answered. Essentially, when you look at both the traders and the other group, the brokers and exchanges, some of that was really just cleanup with them on some of the subscriptions that they'd have into the second quarter. Particularly for the traders, those were on enterprise deals. That really was not having any significant impact at all on the revenue because under the enterprise deals or the site licenses, they are paying a fixed amount. Again, with the second group, with the brokers and exchanges, also not a significant impact on revenue just because the revenue per sub is significantly lower for that group than it is for the traders. I'm not sure, John, do you want to take the question on Nodal? Yeah. Before we get to that, I'll leave a hat in.
In terms of kind of as you're looking forward, Melinda, the Tradeport, even though we've been working through kind of this distributed work environment with both our team at home and our clients working at home, we've actually been continuing to add new clients. What you're not seeing in the results, but you will see as we get into Q3, is that even in just the month of July, we've actually had seven new clients sign up with Tradeport. While there's some noise in the number of subscriptions in Q2, I would not take it as an indicator of anything. Now, with respect to the question around the U.S. and Nodal, we are continuing to work with Nodal, with our partners there in terms of a rollout strategy. This is an initiative to be the candidate has been challenged by the COVID environment.
It has been less about getting access to the traders and more about getting the right attention on the independent service vendors that Tradeport needs to interact with to bring the solution to the traders. That has taken more time than we initially anticipated in terms of access to those service providers and what other priorities they have in terms of managing their own business at that time. The program is still well underway, but we are not in a position where we can give a go-live date to you today.
Thank you so much for our callers.
Next question comes from Jeremy Campbell with Barclays.
Hey. Thanks, everybody. One of your, obviously, your primary near-to-intermediate-term initiatives has been to build out the rates derivative curve. Obviously, the outlook for global rates is pretty muted for the foreseeable future.
Obviously, you had these five-year contract launch last year. John, I know you mentioned you launched Cora recently. Maybe just looking for some color on how this macro backdrop has, one, affected your rollout plans of these new rate products, and then, two, how you envision these newer products gaining traction with clients and volumes within this pretty weak macro rate backdrop.
Yeah. That's a great question. I think that when you think about the launch of the Cora future and the fact that we were able to do that launch in partnership with the client base during that rate regime is a bit of a testament to the partnering with the clients in terms of continuing to move product to market.
What we've really focused on with the team and Luke and his team in general is how do we accelerate getting the rest of our yield curve built out? Because even though we're in that low-rate environment, there will be different client interests at different points in time in different terms. The short-term rates are really low, and the yield curve is very low right now, but that doesn't mean it's going to continue that way in the future. We want to make sure that we've got the product across the spectrum to serve the different needs. Continued priority on getting our two-year product out, some renewed interest from clients around the 30-year. We don't have that in the timetable yet, but we're going to relook to where that fits in.
Continuing to push on some of the other products that we build into the derivatives portfolio that create a bit more diversity in what we're trading. The launch of our ESG indices that we've just did in the last month. All those are to complement the product suite. Now, the one piece I will always continue to take solace in is, despite the fact that in that rate environment and that trading of short-term rates has been challenged, you are still seeing continued strength in the amount of open interest in the exchange. The amount of open contracts in terms of people willing to make markets on them, that continues to remain strong. I think we're up near 10% year over year. Still a good indication of the strength of the business going forward.
Maybe just to add there, if you look at products like the five-year, actually it did very well in the second quarter. The volumes of the five-year were up 18%, which is, as you know, a relaunch product.
Great. Thanks, guys.
Next question comes from Jaeme Gloyn with National Bank Financial.
Yeah. Thanks. Good morning.
Good morning, Jaeme.
I wanted to just dive into the GSIA revenue numbers in the quarter, which were surprisingly strong. Good subscriber growth, good usage growth. I was hoping you could dive into potentially some of the drivers, underlying drivers behind that. Is there anything related to a shift to enterprise agreements? Following that, can you talk about the driver behind the 5% price increase on colocation services and the potential lift we should see from ESG index products being launched this past month?
Sure. Maybe, James, just to start on the enterprise deals, the ones that we talked about that we had signed last year, I believe there were six of them. They were for the most part, in fact, they were all on non-pro subscriptions. So not in the numbers you're seeing there. That's generally an annual opportunity for clients to do that. You won't see any of the enterprise deals again until likely later this year on the non-pro side. I would say it was a mix of things really that drove the DataLynx revenue. There was the increase that we talked about, the 2% in the pro subscriptions on TSX and venture, and also that higher usage-based quote you saw, that more retail activity right in the second quarter compared to last year. Colocation was up as well, revenue without factoring in that 5% price increase.
That's something we've been working for in a while. I think, as we mentioned, that's coming into effect in September of this year.
Yeah. If I can build on, in addition to that, we do actually, in that spirit of the non-pro enterprise deals, have some conversations in progress now in terms of some clients. We think we'll move into that in the near term. I think that should be breaking news for Paul in terms of the look I see on my screen. The second piece is on colo. In addition to the revenue lift from the pricing piece, I think we talked about this last time, that we are working on an expansion of the colocation facility as well in terms of actually a physical expansion so that we can support a larger book of client business.
That work is actually well underway. We're being able to do that during COVID, regardless of those effects. We do expect to get that done within the year. That'll allow us to increase the capacity of what we can handle from a colleague 20%-25%. That gives you an additional lift in that business beyond the pricing as we fill those pieces out, and we've got demand for it already. The other important, really important piece that it does for us is it really facilitates some of the growth in some of the other parts of the business.
As we work on derivatives in terms of selling more derivatives into the European market and getting more flow from Europe, and as we build out the plan for launching in the Asian market in 2021, it's important for us to have capacity in the colocation facility to host those offshore clients that want to put their machines closer to the system. It's really going to be an enabler for those programs as well. It's got a dual benefit to us once we get it launched.
Just to add, I believe actually there could be one enterprise deal in the third quarter, but nothing that would have impacted the second quarter.
Yeah. That's great color. Second question is just around the debt to EBITDA, which drifted just below the two to three times target. Obviously, using some of that capital to increase the dividend, that should help slow the pace of declines in the debt to EBITDA. In terms of the strategy for managing that leverage level, is it for now just to continue to build a war chest, for lack of a better word, to deploy into potential M&A, or do you have maybe some other avenues where you could see meaningful capital deployment, whether it's share buyback or other investments?
Yeah. The priority is really the former there, James. We've got an active portfolio of investment opportunities that we're looking at and really reflecting the fact that given the strength of our business, strength of our balance sheet in a market environment that's challenged, we're actually well positioned to do things. We have a number of active files that we're working on.
That is our priority should those come to fruition. I think you'll also see that within that debt/EBITDA ratio, we are carrying actually more excess cash as well than we normally would. That's actually really a reflection of where just from a treasury management standpoint, we're doing better in terms of interest return on our cash than what we're even paying on our commercial paper these days. I think our latest round of commercial paper was renewed at about 30 basis points. It's extremely cost-effective. That is the priority right now. Priorities in terms of continued buybacks is we have the facility available, but it's not as big a priority as looking for opportunities to invest and expand the business.
Okay. Thank you.
Next question comes from Nik Priebe with CIBC Capital Markets.
Yeah. Thanks. Good morning. Just had a question. I was looking at trading volumes post-quarter end. For the month of July, it looks like cash trading volumes remained pretty elevated, but derivative volumes seemed a bit low to me. I was wondering if you could give us a little bit of color on what you're seeing there. I don't know if that just pertains to interest rate contracts or if it's more across the board. I was just wondering if you could give us some insight on that.
You're right on that, Nik. I mean, the BACs continued to be down just for exactly the same reasons that we talked about. I think it was down around 60%. The same thing. We saw a lot of strength in the single stock futures. They were up, I think, almost 150% over July last year. The trend is there. There are obviously other initiatives.
John mentioned the CORRA futures contract. That's an important one at the short end of the interest rate curve.
Okay. Got it. Thank you.
Yeah. I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity, Nik, to talk about the equity volumes that you're seeing in July at the same time and really draw your attention to one of the really interesting and exciting lifts that are in the July volumes, not just the overall equity volumes, but the strength in the venture exchange. A real renewed interest, a pickup in venture, particularly around the strength in the mining issuers. That's also driving a real strong demand that we're seeing on the capital formation side in terms of potential future financing. It's a real positive sign in what's been a challenging market.
Yeah. Certainly. Okay. Thanks very much.
Once again, if you would like to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. We have a question from Rasib Bhanjie with TD Securities.
Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. I had a question on your market share in the domestic equities market. It is up 3-4% from last year. I was just wondering if you can provide some color as to what is driving that and whether that happens normally during periods of heightened volatility.
Yeah. I think there are a couple of factors in there. In terms of heightened volatility, that does actually play to the strength of the strong central market. Additionally in there, we had substantial pickup also in our dark volumes as well. I do not know if you were wrong when we talked last time.
We've made some substantial investments in building out our dark trading facility that we did some relaunch on early in the year. We did some competitive pricing in it, some strong sales work with the client base, and really had that move up the routing tables in terms of the priority that clients put on it. You kind of see in the dark market, which is about, call it, 10% of the overall Canadian market, we've gone from last year being about 15% of that component to closer to 30% today. A really strong lift. That's part of that share increase that you're seeing in the overall.
Okay. Makes sense. Thank you. Just a quick question on the market data revenue side, excluding trade reports. That was up 5%. You mentioned this included a favorable impact from a weaker Canadian dollar. I was wondering if you could quantify that for us.
It would have been less than $1 million, probably something in the $600,000-$700,000 range.
Okay. Perfect. That's all the questions I have. Thank you.
Thank you.
At this time, I will turn the call over to Ms. Park.
Thank you, everyone, for listening in today. If you have any further questions, contact information for media as well as for investor relations is in our press lead. We would be happy to get back to you. Finally, in closing, we wish you all the best. Please stay healthy and be safe. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.