The largest stock exchange in the world – the one in New York – was officially founded on this day in 1817. Its roots can be tracked as far back as 1792, when 24 brokers met under a plane tree in Wall Street and signed an agreement in which they set down the manner in which they would do business. According to the agreement, Wall Street brokers agreed to trade only amongst themselves and that all commissions shall be only 0.25%.
The stock exchange’s original address was Wall Street 40. Today the exchange is located at Wall Street 11. It is interesting that Wall Street is most probably named after the city walls, since New York used to be so small that Wall Street marked the end of its boundaries.
In 2007 the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) surpassed its competitors by merging with the European exchange Euronext, thus creating the first global stock exchange. It is estimated that the total value of all companies listed at NYSE-Euronext are worth a total of over 16,000 billion dollars. This makes it the largest stock market in the world both according to the amount of trading volume and market capitalization (the total value of all stocks of all listed companies).
