Seeing so many shares (relative to recent volumes) trading on secondary exchanges leads me to research, not Resverlogix specifically....but the inner workings of the securities markets. To my mind, knowing how the big boys play the market is vitally important. Many of my opinions have been formed by reading on the strategies and opinions of guys like Wycoff and Granville.

But obviously the world has changed alot since Wycoff's world of the 20s and 30s and Granville's of the 60s, 70s and 80s. Back in those halceon days there weren't guys like me using discount brokers, buying and selling stock from a desktop or laptop computer. And there certainly weren't participants using High Frequency Trading (HFT) algorithims to eke out even the tiniest advantage.

We traded over 360,000 shares on Monday, but less than 240,000 of that trading took place on the TSX. That's roughly 120,000 on secondary exchanges, with over half of it on the CHI-X.

Researching dark pools and CHI-X specifically I came across this: http://www.iiroc.ca/Documents/2011/20469088-5f8c-46ea-8e7d-11d555a1348e_en.pdf

Here's a snippet:

In our view, dark order types (on lit venues) assist in shielding trading intentions and reducing footprint, particularly when traded on an anonymous or unattributed book. Separately, dark pools represent the fairest and most efficient form of trading dark liquidity by democratizing access to the non-displayed liquidity that otherwise would sit on traders’ blotters, thereby increasing total available liquidity in the market. Both forms of dark liquidity represent valuable trading tools for participants, and can ultimately be used to improve trading performance, particularly when considering the price improvement opportunities and lower fees they may provide.

IIROC is the Investment Industry Regulartory Orginization of Canada. The purpose of the paper by CHI-X is to argue against the need for greater control and transparency in the markets by my read.

In short, dark pools are used by market participants who want to mask their activity, and hence their trading intentions. There are players who have the means and (given the regulatory environment) the ability to hide their activity...be it in accumulating or distributing a stock.

Some might suggest that all the secondary dark pool acitivity of late with RVX is without meaning. I would disagree....The only question: Are the big fish swimming in the dark waters, are they accumulating or distributing.

My opinion, which you already know...is they're accumulating.