History of New York Stock Exchange

The earliest recorded organization of securities trading in New York among brokers directly dealing with each other can be traced to the Buttonwood Agreement. Previously, securities exchange had been intermediated by the auctioneers, who also conducted more mundane auctions of commodities such as wheat and tobacco. On May 17, 1792, twenty-four brokers signed the Buttonwood Agreement, which set a floor commission rate charged to clients and bound the signers to give preference to the other signers in securities sales.

Depiction of traders under the buttonwood tree

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In 1817, the stockbrokers of New York, operating under the Buttonwood Agreement, instituted new reforms and reorganized. After sending a delegation to Philadelphia to observe the organization of their board of brokers, restrictions on manipulative trading were adopted, as well as formal organs of governance. After re-forming as the New York Stock and Exchange Board, the broker organization began renting out space exclusively for securities trading, which previously had been taking place at the Tontine Coffee House. Several locations were used between 1817 and 1865 when the present location was adopted.

Tontine Coffee House

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The Open Board of Stock Brokers was established in 1864 as a competitor to the NYSE. With 354 members, the Open Board of Stock Brokers rivaled the NYSE in membership (which had 533) "because it used a more modern, continuous trading system superior to the NYSE’s twice-daily call sessions".

In 1865, the New York Gold Exchange was acquired by the NYSE.

In 1867, stock tickers were first introduced.

The Open Board of Stock Brokers merged with the NYSE in 1869.

The Civil War greatly stimulated speculative securities trading in New York. By 1869, membership had to be capped and has been sporadically increased since. The latter half of the nineteenth century saw rapid growth in securities trading.

In 1885, the 400 NYSE members in the Consolidated Stock Exchange withdraw from Consolidated over disagreements on exchange trade areas.

The Stock Exchange at 10–12 Broad Street, 1882

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In 1896, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is first published in The Wall Street Journal.

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

The main New York Stock Exchange Building, built in 1903, is at 18 Broad Street, between the corners of Wall Street and Exchange Place, and was designed in the Beaux Arts style by George B. Post.

In 1909, trading in bonds begins.

The floor of the New York Stock Exchange in 1908

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The exchange was closed shortly after the beginning of World War I (July 31, 1914), but it partially re-opened on November 28 of that year in order to help the war effort by trading bonds and completely reopened for stock trading in mid-December.

In 1915, basis of quoting and trading in stocks changes from percent of par value to dollars.

On September 16, 1920, the Wall Street bombing occurred outside the building, killing thirty-eight people and injuring hundreds more.

Wall Street bombing

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In 1923, Poor's Publishing introduced their "Composite Index", today referred to as the S&P 500, which tracked a small number of companies on the NYSE.

The Black Thursday crash of the Exchange on October 24, 1929, and the sell-off panic which started on Black Tuesday, October 29, are often blamed for precipitating the Great Depression. In an effort to restore investor confidence, the Exchange unveiled a fifteen-point program aimed to upgrade protection for the investing public on October 31, 1938.

Crowd gathering on Wall Street after the 1929 crash

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On October 1, 1934, the exchange was registered as a national securities exchange with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, with a president and a thirty-three member board.

In 1943, the trading floor is opened to women while men were serving in WWII.

In 1949, the third-longest (eight-year) bull market begins.

In 1957, after Poor's Publishing merged with the Standard Statistics Bureau, the Standard & Poors composite index grew to track 500 companies on the NYSE, becoming known as the S&P 500.

In 1966, NYSE begins a composite index of all listed common stocks. This is referred to as the "Common Stock Index" and is transmitted daily. The starting point of the index is 50. It is later renamed the NYSE Composite Index.

One of Abbie Hoffman's well-known publicity stunts took place in 1967 when he led members of the Yippie movement to the Exchange's gallery. The provocateurs hurled fistfuls of dollars toward the trading floor below. Some traders booed, and some laughed and waved. Three months later the stock exchange enclosed the gallery with bulletproof glass. Hoffman wrote a decade later, "We didn't call the press; at that time we really had no notion of anything called a media event."

Abbie HoffmanAbbie Hoffman

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In 1970, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation was established.

In 1971, the NASDAQ was founded and competes with the NYSE as the world's first electronic stock market. To date, the NASDAQ is the second-largest exchange in the world by market capitalization, behind only the NYSE.

NASDAQNASDAQNASDAQ

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On February 18, 1971, the non-profit corporation was formed, and the number of board members was reduced to twenty-five.

In 1972, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 1,000 for the first time on November 14.

In 1977, foreign brokers are admitted to NYSE.

In 1980, the New York Futures Exchange was established.

On October 19, 1987, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped 508 points, a 22.6% loss in a single day, the second-biggest one-day drop the exchange had experienced. Black Monday was followed by Terrible Tuesday, a day in which the Exchange's systems did not perform well and some people had difficulty completing their trades.

In 1989, On September 14, seven members of ACT-UP, The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, entered the NYSE and protested by chaining themselves to the balcony overlooking the trading floor and unfurling a banner, "SELL WELCOME," in reference to drug manufacturer Burroughs Wellcome. Following the protest, Burroughs Wellcome reduced the price of AZT (a drug used by people living with HIV and AIDS) by over 30%.

Rage Against the MachineRage Against the MachineRage Against the Machine

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Subsequently, there was another major drop for the Dow on October 13, 1989—the Mini-Crash of 1989. The crash was apparently caused by a reaction to a news story of a $6.75 billion leveraged buyout deal for UAL Corporation, the parent company of United Airlines, which broke down. When the UAL deal fell through, it helped trigger the collapse of the junk bond market causing the Dow to fall 190.58 points or 6.91 percent.

In 1990, the longest (ten-year) bull market begins.

In 1995, the Dow Jones Industrial Average exceeds 5,000.

In 1996, real-time ticker was introduced.

Similarly, there was a panic in the financial world during the year 1997; the Asian Financial Crisis. Like the fall of many foreign markets, the Dow suffered a 7.18% drop in value (554.26 points) on October 27, 1997, in what later became known as the 1997 Mini-Crash but from which the DJIA recovered quickly. This was the first time that the "circuit breaker" rule had operated.

In 1999, the Dow Jones Industrial Average exceeds 10,000 on March 29.

On January 26, 2000, an altercation during the filming of the music video for Rage Against the Machine's "Sleep Now in the Fire", directed by Michael Moore, caused the doors of the exchange to be closed and the band to be escorted from the site by security after the members attempted to gain entry into the exchange.

Rage Against the MachineRage Against the Machine

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In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the NYSE was closed for four trading sessions, resuming on Monday, September 17, one of the rare times the NYSE was closed for more than one session and only the third time since March 1933.

In 2003, NYSE Composite Index was relaunched and value set equal to 5,000 points.

On April 21, 2005, the NYSE announced its plans to merge with Archipelago 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 became a for-profit, public company.

In 2006, NYSE and ArcaEx merge, creating NYSE Arca and forming the publicly owned, for-profit NYSE Group, Inc.; in turn, NYSE Group merges with Euronext, creating the first trans-Atlantic stock exchange group; DJIA tops 12,000 on October 19.

In 2007, US President George W. Bush shows up unannounced to the Floor about an hour and a half before a Federal Open Market Committee interest-rate decision on January 31; NYSE announces its merger with the American Stock Exchange; NYSE Composite closes above 10,000 on June 1.

George W. Bush

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On April 4, 2007, the NYSE Group completed its merger with Euronext, the European combined stock market, thus forming NYSE Euronext, the first transatlantic stock exchange.

In 2008, the DJIA loses more than 500 points on September 15 amid fears of bank failures, resulting in a permanent prohibition of naked short selling and a three-week temporary ban on all short-selling of financial stocks; in spite of this, record volatility continues for the next two months, culminating at 5+1⁄2-year market lows.

The NYSE BuildingThe NYSE Building

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In October 2008, NYSE Euronext completed the acquisition of the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) for $260 million in stock.

In 2009, the second-longest and current bull market begins on March 9 after the DJIA closes at 6,547.05 reaching a 12-year low; DJIA returns to 10,015.86 on October 14.

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On May 6, 2010, the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its largest intraday percentage drop since the crash on October 19, 1987, with a 998-point loss later being called the 2010 Flash Crash (as the drop occurred in minutes before rebounding).

On February 15, 2011, NYSE and Deutsche Börse announced their merger to form a new company, as yet unnamed, wherein Deutsche Börse shareholders would have 60% ownership of the new entity, and NYSE Euronext shareholders would have 40%.

In April 2011, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), an American futures exchange, and NASDAQ OMX Group had together made an unsolicited proposal to buy NYSE Euronext for approximately US$11,000,000,000, a deal in which NASDAQ would have taken control of the stock exchanges. NYSE Euronext rejected this offer twice, but it was finally terminated after the United States Department of Justice indicated their intention to block the deal due to antitrust concerns.

The NYSE has also imposed additional rules in response to shareholder protection controls, e.g. in 2012, the NYSE imposed rules restricting brokers from voting uninstructed shares.

On February 1, 2012, the European Commission blocked the merger of NYSE with Deutsche Börse, after commissioner Joaquín Almunia stated that the merger "would have led to a near-monopoly in European financial derivatives worldwide". Instead, Deutsche Börse and NYSE would have to sell either their Eurex derivatives or LIFFE shares in order to not create a monopoly. On February 2, 2012, NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Börse agreed to scrap the merger.

On October 29, 2012, the stock exchange was shut down for two days due to Hurricane Sandy.

On May 1, 2014, the stock exchange was fined $4.5 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle charges that it had violated market rules.

On August 14, 2014, Berkshire Hathaway's A Class shares, the highest-priced shares on the NYSE, hit $200,000 a share for the first time.

In 2014, the DJIA closes above 17,000 on July 3 and above 18,000 on December 23.

In 2015, the DJIA achieved an all-time high of 18,351.36 on May 19.

On July 8, 2015, technical issues affected the stock exchange, halting trading at 11:32 am ET. The NYSE reassured stock traders that the outage was "not a result of a cyber breach", and the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that there was "no sign of malicious activity". Trading eventually resumed at 3:10 pm ET the same day.

In 2016, the DJIA hits an all-time high of 18,873.6.

In 2017, the DJIA reaches 20,000 for the first time (on January 25).

In 2018, the DJIA reaches 25,000 for the first time (on January 4).

New York Stock Exchange

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On February 5, the DJIA dropped 1,175 points, making it the largest point drop in history.

On May 25, 2018, Stacey Cunningham, the NYSE's chief operating officer, became the Big Board's 67th president, succeeding Thomas Farley. She is the first female leader in the exchange's 226-year history.

In March 2020, the NYSE announced plans to temporarily move to all-electronic trading on March 23, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City.