TSX Inc. subsidiary PC-Bond today announced that four firms have signed on as pricing participants for the PC-Bond Canadian Fixed Income Indices.

PC-Bond is a of Canadian fixed income benchmarks, analytics and performance measurement.

The four firms are: Merrill Lynch Canada Inc.; National Bank Financial; BMO Capital Markets; and RBC Capital Markets.

“We are seeing rapid growth and acceptance to the PC-Bond analytics and index platform,” said Richard Nesbitt, TSX Group CEO.

As a founding participants, the four dealers will help provide a broad range of fixed income securities pricing to PC-Bond for inclusion into PC-Bond products such as the Universe Bond Index, a fixed income index used by 95% of buy-side participants, and the recently launched Universe + Maple Bond Index.

With approximately 1,000 issues and a total market value of over $660 billion, the Universe Bond Index broadly represents the market performance of investment-grade bonds issued by Canadian companies and issuers in the government sector, PC-Bond says.