STEVE LADURANTAYE

Globe and Mail Update

December 17, 2008 at 10:49 AM EST

Trading has been stopped on the Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange, with quotes and index data unavailable Wednesday because of a system crash.

“We have halted all TSX and TSX Venture issues,” said Mark Jarrett, director of equity operations. “We will provide updates as they become available.”

A statement on the TSX website stated that the exchange was experiencing a “service interruption” on the data feeds that provide real-time data for stocks on both exchanges, such as trade information, quotes, corporate actions and index information.

The data produced by these feeds is also available on a time delay, and is often used on financial websites.

“This is just annoying – that's all,” said Brandon Osten, president of Toronto-based Venator Capital Management Ltd. “But then, we do most of our buying in the States.”