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A Brief History Of The New York Stock Exchange
By Mike Singh

Also known as the "Big Board," the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was created by a merger of the NYSE and Archipelago Holdings, which is fully electronic, and became known as the New York Stock Exchange Group.

The NYSE is made up of 5 rooms used for trading and is found on 18 Broad Street, New York City. The NYSE can trace its roots to 1792, however it did not become known as the New York Stock Exchange until 1817 when the organization drafted a constitution.

It is the largest stock exchange in the world in the amount of dollars that flows through it each day and has the second largest number of company listing, exceeded only by NASDAQ. The global capitalization of the exchange is $2.1 trillion with $1.7 trillion of that being companies not based in the U.S.

The NYSE works similar to that of an auction. Each company listed trades in one location. A specialist broker employed by each of the listed companies has the duty of acting as an auctioneer at the company post.

Buyers and sellers of a certain stock come together around a particular post and an auction takes place. This form of trading helps produce a price for stocks that is efficient and fair for both buyers and sellers. The human interaction and the expert judgment helps differentiate the New York Exchange from other stock exchanges that are fully electronic.

In recent times orders for stocks are increasingly being delivered to the trading floor electronically. The development for a Hybrid market bringing together the elements of human interaction and electronic markets is currently in the works.

The NYSE has been made famous by a number of big budget Hollywood movies. Its history has also been a very interesting one. In 1920 a bomb was planted on Wall Street right outside the NYSE building. When it exploded it killed 33 people, injured more than 400 and caused considerable damage to the surrounding buildings. The terrorists who planted the bomb were never captured.

There have been a number of famous Wall Street crashes the most famous of which is known as Black Thursday which happened on the 24th of October, 1929. The selling panic which ensued is often blamed for coming of the Great Depression.

The current President of the NYSE is Catherine Kinney and the CEO is John Reid while Marsh Carter is the Chairman.