Wall Street (below)
The Stock Market Exchanges On the Exchange Floor
Stocks: Sharing a Corporation Who is DOW JONES Anyway?
Stock Market Vocabulary
Finding an Investment Professional
Wall Street, which got its name from the stockade built by early settlers to protect New York from attacks from the North, now lends its name to the financial markets in general -- although lots of traders never set foot on it.
The first stock exchange in America was organized in Philadelphia in 1790. By 1792 New York had become the center of all market action and still is today. The beginnings of Wall Street started with 24 merchants and auctioneers meeting every day under the Buttonwood tree on Wall Street to buy and sell commodities, trade in currency, insure cargo, and speculated in land, not with the investments of stocks and bonds. The name, New York Stock Exchange (See Stock Market Insights Article #2), was adopted in 1817.
Stocks are listed (traded) on three exchanges. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the American Exchange (AMEX); which started as the rival of the New York Stock Exchange in 1842 and was originally called the New York Curb Exchange because all trading actually took place on the street; until it moved indoors in 1921 and later changed its name in 1952 to the American Exchange.
The Over the Counter Exchange (OTC), which is regulated by the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System NASDAQ originated at a time when you were able to buy and sell shares of stock over the counter from a broker. Stocks that are listed on the NYSE or AMEX may also be traded on one of the five regional exchanges located in