As if brokerage houses in the West don’t have enough on their plate these days, trying to make sense of the gobbledygook in financial reports, now their research departments face yet another daunting task.

So what’s all the headshaking and handwringing about now?

It concerns the appointment of a new president for the TSX Venture Exchange (that’s the newly christened exchange formerly known as the Canadian Venture Exchange - CDNX, the latter being the exchange formerly known as the Alberta Stock Exchange or the Vancouver Stock Exchange).

Linda Hohol

The burning question at the water cooler of brokers in the West is, Linda Who!?

Some are miffed that an exchange with an apparent identity crisis and credibility and liquidity problems would hire Linda Hohol who, as far as we can tell, is a household name mainly in her own house.

With investors deserting the junior exchange in droves over the past two years, it seemed that the TSE, which acquired the CDNX last summer for $50 million, would want to give junior some clout by hiring someone who is at least on a first-name basis with the brokerage community.

Since the appointment, major players in the investment community such as Jason Donville, president of Calgary-based Lightyear Capital, and Tony Hepburn, the former chairman of the defunct Vancouver Stock Exchange, have been mystified as to where Hohol came from and what her mandate might be.

All we can surmise for sure at this point is that the new leader of the low-profile exchange wants to keep a low profile.

One Calgary report touts the new boss, a one-time vice-president of wealth management with CIBC and director of the Calgary Airport Authority, as a straight-shooter.

Unfortunately, if this is Calamity Jane, she ain’t wearing no holster.

The only shooting Hohol did on the day the TSX announced her appointment was with a BB gun – firing not from the hip but with aprepared statement that told us she was “absolutely thrilled” with the job and the “wonderful opportunity to work alongside (TSX president) Barbara Stymiest.”

Strangely enough, TSX spokesman Steve Kee responded to an interview request with Hohol thusly: “She won’t be granting any interviews until she begins work on April 29.”

Her predecessor, Bill Hess, who resigned as CDNX president in November, may have left a sinking ship, but at least commanded respect in the media during his tenure because he recognized the importance of promotion and forthrightness and did not shy from the tough questions.

When the TSE announced its intentions last year to take over the CDNX, there was an outcry in the West that the exchange would lose its western flavour and identity as a market providing emerging companies with access to capital.

At the time, it seemed to be somewhat of an overreaction, but now it appears the critics were right on the money.

Westerners don’t take kindly to being bullied by easterners and some in the West view the appointment of Hohol, coming straight out of left field, as yet another example of the street bully from the East flexing its muscles.

Hohol is a Calgary resident, but few in the Calgary investment community are familiar with her and that’s an awful sore point with the investment community in Alberta and B.C.

Two years ago, the CDNX was being trumpeted as Nasdaq North, but the tech meltdown and a depressed junior capital industry has melted down the total market capitalization of the junior exchange to about $12 billion from its height of $29.7 billion in March of 2000.

During that time, daily volume has plummeted from a peak of 160 million to the 40-million per day range.

With a dearth of liquid stocks, the CDNX has fallen from grace with a resounding thud. It isn’t even on the radar screen of most investors and is best known as Canada’s poster child of the dot-com crash.

Hohol’s work is certainly cut out for her if she intends to put the shine back on the apple and make the baby TSX a vibrant operation.

But one has to wonder if the TSX is even the least bit interested in propping up the profile of its baby exchange.

With the TSX preoccupied with dolling up its own image and flaunting its new TSX logo, does it really give a damn about the image of its subsidiary venture exchange?

Or is the TSX more interested in selling the junior exchange as a lowly farm club while boosting its own profile as Canada’s centrepiece market?

That question may be answered when investors calling up www.cdnx.com are rudely swept away to the TSX site, where the baby exchange assumes a low profile in the shadow of the parent company. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water!

* STREET TALK: Jason Donville is bullish on the Canadian economy, which he expects to easily outperform the U.S. economy.

“Canada’s attractiveness as a place for investment is extremely high right now (based on the weak dollar),” says the director of research with Lightyear Capital. “As a consequence, our manufacturing industries in Canada are extremely competitive. The U.S. consumer is also far more tapped out than the Canadian consumer is. The levels of debt are much higher in the U.S. In the U.S., they’re living on borrowed time to some extent.”

Donville’s rosy forecast came just as Bank of Canada governor David Dodge reversed course by raising interest rates by a quarter point.

* SAGE ADVICE: “The herd instinct among (market) forecasters makes sheep look like independent thinkers” – economist Edgar R. Fiedler.

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SNG-TSX $2.94 Up 63 cents (+27.3%) on 2,017,200 shares (for week ending April 19). The joyride continues for Greg Noval's red-hot Canadian Superior play. The stock busted through its year high and has spiked 135 per cent since early March. The Calgary-based oil-and-gas upstart has an intriguing project offshore Nova Scotia where it is the largest landholder with 934,065 acres.

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SIO-TSX Venture Exchange 7 Cents Down 8 cents (-53.3%) on 69,500 shares (for week ending April 19). Like many speculative TSX Venture tech plays, SineTec’s roller-coaster ride isn’t exactly tailor made for widows and orphans. The latest swoon comes fast on the heels of a 150-per-cent moonshot in which the stock spiked from 6 cents to 15 cents. SineTec’s product is the FreedomPLUS handsfree cell phone adaptor. The company raised $143,500 in financing early this year.