In a sense, the stock market was born in the United States at the end of the American Revolution.  The first shares were introduced from the first North American banks: the Bank of North America, Bank of New York and the First Bank of the United States.  As the stock market was born, stock brokers began to emerge, primarily in New York.

On this day, March 8th, in 1817, a constitution was drafted and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was formally established.  Anthony Stockholm was named the NYSE’s first president.  The NYSE’s history actually goes back to 1792, when 24 stock brokers established the New York Stock and Exchange board on Wall Street in New York.  The NYSE steadily grew after being established and prominent stock brokers throughout the city joined the exchange. The NYSE became so large that by 1901 the trading floor of the NYSE was the largest volume of space in New York City.

Today, the NYSE is the largest stock exchange in the world. The average trading value for the NYSE is an excess of $150 billion and the exchange has a market cap of more than $13 trillion.