In her address to shareholders at yesterday’s annual general meeting of the Toronto Stock Exchange, CEO Barbara Stymiest gave a reporting of the TSX Group’s activities in the past year, and her take on market conditions.

“We meet this year at a time of immense uncertainty,” Sytmiest told the gathering. She says the Canadian economy is now in the midst of a recovery, and the American economy has displayed considerable strength in specific areas such as productivity, consumer spending and housing. But despite this, market indices are not reflecting investors’ expectations of a strengthening economy.

It is “a contagion of distrust” undermining confidence, and creating the disconnect between economy and the securities industry. She says national boarders are not barriers to the spread of distrust, and with each new revelation, a whole new circle of corporations become suspect. “It puts off the beginning of what may be a long and arduous process of restoring confidence.”

Stymiest claims TSX undertakings are responsible, at least in part, for improvements in the regulatory arena.

“We have tackled some critical public issues that bear directly on the efficiency of Canadian capital markets and on our capacity to compete on a global basis.” Most notably, “we have taken a lead role in identifying the costs of Canada’s fragmented regulatory system to investors.”

“At a minimum,” she says, “I believe we have already spurred provincial and territorial regulators toward a simpler system in which differences among jurisdictions are minimized.”

The CEO told shareholders the TSX will maintain tight control of expenses. She also reviewed the Group’s accomplishments for the year which include the installation of a new trading system, the purchase and integration of the Canadian Venture Exchange, the spinoff of market regulatory services, and the exchange’s recent rebranding as the TSX Group.

The company also launched a series of new products to increase liquidity, and recently purchased a 40% stake in CanDeal, an electronic trading system for institutional traders in debt market securities. The latest move, she says “represents diversification of the business of the TSX Group.”

According to its news release, the TSX Group saw consolidated net income of $30.2 million on revenue of $180 million, and 2001 marked the second strongest year on record.