American Stock Markets

The U.S. Markets are the largest in the world in terms of market capitalization and trade volumes. The New York stock exchange (nicknamed “the Big Board” and NASDAQ are two major stock exchanges in U.S.A.These 2 stock markets alone represent 50% of the world’s total market capitalization. The New York stock exchange (NYSE) has about 2400 listings and NASDAQ has 3900 listings. This means that 2400 companies are listed on NYSE and stocks of these many companies can be publicly traded on NYSE.

The stock markets were founded in the 18^th Century (New York Stock Exchange in 1792 and, Philadelphia Stock exchange in 1790). The earliest traces of securities trading among traders can be traced to the ButtonWood Agreement. 24 brokers sat under a Buttonwood tree and signed an agreement to set a floor for commission rate charged to clients for securities trading. The agreement also bound them to give preferences to other signers of the securities sales. Also, NASDAQ was the first stock exchange to introduce electronic trading.

1)New York Stock Exchange
The New York stock exchange (nicknamed “the Big Board”) is the largest stock exchange in the world by market capitalization. It is owned by InterContinentalExchange, An American holding company, which is a Fortune 500 company into the business of creating and maintaining different markets across geographies. In April 2006 it became a publicly traded company and at the same time it adopted electronic system for its traders and public. The NYSE crossed a milestone of 1 million shares traded in a day in 1886. By 1997, 1 billion shares were traded daily on NYSE.

The NYSE started functioning in May 1792 at 68 Wallstreet. An agreement named Buttonwood agreement was signed by 24 brokers and merchants that laid down rules for trading securities. The first stock that was listed on NYSE was Bank of New York. In April 2005, NYSE announced its merger with Archipelago and announced itself as not-for-profit organisation. In 2007, the NYSE merged with Euronext which combined it to five major European exchanges. In 2008 it acquired American stock exchange to focus on small cap companies of the US. The NYSE was purchased by Intercontinental exchange in 2013 which was $11 billion deal.

2)NASDAQ Stock Exchange
Nasdaq stock market is the second largest stock market after NYSE based on its market capitalization of its listed securities. It has more than 3700 companies listed. Nasdaq has highest trade volumes in the US market with more than 1 billion trades per day. The Nasdaq stock exchange is the first exchange to introduce electronic trade facility along with being the first exchange to launch a website and first to sell such technologies to other exchanges.The exchange platform is owned by Nasdaq Inc, which also owns Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic stock market network and several other stock exchanges.

Nasdaq stood for National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations and was founded in 1971 by National Association of Securities Dealer (NASD). When it first started its function on February 8, 1971, the exchange couldn’t execute trade instead provided quotations and for many years was referred as OTC traded market. Later on, it added automated traded systems that could generate trade and volume reports and thus became first exchange to offer online trading.

Wall Street

Wall Street is a street in lower Manhattan and is the center of the US financial system which includes stock exchanges and large banks, underwriting firms, brokerages as well as big businesses. Two major exchanges of the US namely The NYSE and the NASDAQ exchanges are both located at Wall Street. Many other major exchanges have their headquarters located in Wall Street.

Wall Street got its name from a wooden wall built in 1653 on Northern Amsterdam to protect its native Americans and British. The wall was taken down in 1699 but the name remained the same. The street became a center of trade in the 1700 and later on publicly traded investments were issued. Today, Wal Street is home for several important financial institutions of the US and the street represents financial and economic power of the US.