Canada needs IPOs to reverse a shrinking number of stocks

Canada’s largest stock exchanges are atrophying, with the number of publicly traded companies shrinking for a fourth straight year even as the country’s stock benchmark soared past the S&P 500. Delistings and companies taken private continue to outpace IPOs on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the junior TSX Venture Exchange, a stark contrast to the benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index’s 27% increase. The number of corporate issuers on the TSX has fallen 45% since 2008 to 678 as of the end of the third quarter, ...