The research program of the Financial Market Surveillance Intelligence Centre is based on several axes and themes.
One of the Centre’s areas of research is aimed at optimizing the mechanisms currently used to monitor and detect financial market manipulation practices. This area of research involves analysis to assess and identify the potential limitations of current mechanisms, in terms of detecting manipulative practices, reacting in the event of detection, and the efforts and measures put in place to deter such practices. The aim is to develop approaches that will enable more effective detection or better reaction in the event of manipulation being detected, notably by developing advanced, more sophisticated and more effective indicators of imbalance, or by devising measures that provide information on the degree of incentive for manipulation in a given market. Internationally available models are analyzed and compared with local models, while assessing their potential adaptation to the Canadian context.
The Centre’s research also focuses on in-depth analysis of historical episodes of manipulation in all types of financial markets, both in Canada and internationally.
Another of the Centre’s research themes is the analysis of anomalies and potential manipulative practices in exchange-traded and over-the-counter derivatives markets, as well as in the markets for their underlying assets, while examining the interaction between these different markets in the event that episodes of manipulation develop.
Several other issues are covered by the Centre’s research activities. In particular, the Centre intends to carry out systematic information monitoring using cutting-edge strategic intelligence tools and sophisticated information gathering, analysis and archiving techniques (e.g. deceptive stock market practices, new government deregulation initiatives, etc.).
It should be noted that these research themes can be applied to any type of asset and the markets or platforms where they are traded, including stock exchanges or over-the-counter markets, traditional financial instruments and derivatives, as well as cryptoassets.