New York Stock Exchange - History

History

The origin of the NYSE can be traced to May 17, 1792, when the Buttonwood Agreement was signed by 24 stockbrokers outside of 68 Wall Street in New York under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street. On March 8, 1817, the organization drafted a constitution and renamed itself the "New York Stock & Exchange Board." Anthony Stockholm was elected the Exchange's first president.

The first central location of the Exchange was a room, rented in 1792 for $200 a month, located at 40 Wall Street. After that location was destroyed in the Great Fire of New York in 1835, the Exchange moved to a temporary headquarters. In 1863, the New York Stock & Exchange Board changed to its current name, the New York Stock Exchange. In 1865, the Exchange moved to 10–12 Broad Street.

The New York Stock Exchange was closed for ten days starting September 20, 1873, because of the Panic of 1873.

The volume of stocks traded increased sixfold in the years between 1896 and 1901, and a larger space was required to conduct business in the expanding marketplace. Eight New York City architects were invited to participate in a design competition for a new building; ultimately, the Exchange selected the neoclassic design submitted by architect George B. Post. Demolition of the Exchange building at 10 Broad Street, and adjacent buildings, started on May 10, 1901.

The new building, located at 18 Broad Street, cost $4 million and opened on April 22, 1903. The trading floor, at 109 × 140 feet (33 × 42.5 m), was one of the largest volumes of space in the city at the time, and had a skylight set into a 72-foot (22 m)-high ceiling. The main façade of the building features six tall columns with Corinthian capitals, topped by a marble pediment containing high-relief sculptures by John Quincy Adams Ward with the collaboration of Paul Wayland Bartlett, carved by the Piccirilli Brothers, representing Integrity Protecting the Works of Man. The building was listed as a National Historic Landmark and added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 2, 1978.

In 1922, a building for offices, designed by Trowbridge & Livingston, was added at 11 Wall Street, as well as a new trading floor called the Garage. Additional trading floor space was added in 1969 the Blue Room, and in 1988 the EBR or Extended Blue Room, with the latest technology for information display and communication. Yet another trading floor was opened at 30 Broad Street called the Bond Room in 2000. As the NYSE introduced its hybrid market, a greater proportion of trading came to be executed electronically, and due to the resulting reduction in demand for trading floor space, the NYSE decided to close the 30 Broad Street trading room in early 2006. As the adoption of electronic trading continued to reduce the number of traders and employees on the floor, in late 2007, the NYSE closed the rooms created by the 1969 and 1988 expansions.

The Stock Exchange Luncheon Club was situated on the seventh floor from 1898 until its closure in 2006.

The NYSE announced its plans to merge with Archipelago on April 21, 2005, in a deal intended to reorganize the NYSE as a publicly traded company. NYSE's governing board voted to merge with rival Archipelago on December 6, 2005, and become a for-profit, public company. It began trading under the name NYSE Group on March 8, 2006. A little over one year later, on April 4, 2007, the NYSE Group completed its merger with Euronext, the European combined stock market, thus forming the NYSE Euronext, the first transatlantic stock exchange.

Presently, Marsh Carter is Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, having succeeded John S. Reed and the CEO is Duncan Niederauer, having succeeded John Thain.