New York Stock Exchange - NYSE

The NYSE stands for New York Stock Exchange and it was founded on March 8, 1817; however, it has its origins in the Buttonwood Agreement. This stock exchange is located in Wall Street, in the lower part of Manhattan. The address for the trading floor is 11 Wall Street. The home of the NYSE has always been Wall Street, since the signing of the agreement under the Buttonwood tree in front of 68 Wall Street; however, its quarters moved a couple of times throughout the years. It used to be called The New York Stock and Exchange Board, but that name was changed to the current name in 1863. The currency utilized is the US dollar. The NYSE is owned by NYSE Euronext. The merger happened in 2007 as the two companies, NYSE Group Inc. and Euronext N.V. united forming NYSE Euronext. The website for this entity is the nyse.com site. The hours for trading are during 9:30 am until 4:30 pm on Mondays through Fridays, except for Holidays.

It is considered the biggest stock exchange worldwide. It is sometimes called the Big Board. Throughout the years since its origin since the amount of stocks have increased making it what it is today. The indexes are the NYSE Composite, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the S&P 500. This institution serves as a way for buyers and sellers - investors - to trade shares of stock of companies that are registered as public. Most NYSE stocks can be traded electronically today; except for a few that are priced very high. This has replaced mostly the outcry auction style of the past, as automation has taken over. It powers exchanges all over the world trading cash equities, options, futures, and fixed income or exchange traded products. What started as a private entity became a public entity in 2005.

This method is considered the most investor-friendly worldwide. Technology has facilitated the trading of stocks and even people who are not verse in stocks can learn about them and start participating slowly as they gain experience in the trading of stocks. Today, many companies facilitate this via online, and brokers help investors who want to grow in investing techniques. The NYSE website offers a free educational program so people can understand how this entity works and learn about the different options. This program is mostly designed for teachers and students and is available in PDF format.

Today, trading has become a common practice in households, thanks to the advances of technology. Many online companies are designed for the do it yourself type of investor who does not want to hire a broker to do the trading. However, trading successfully still requires a lot of knowledge and being able to follow what the market is doing every day. Many people are of the opinion that the exchange of stocks rely on the psyche or emotion of traders and it shows on the ups and downs of the daily transactions; these people prefer to put their money in other ways of investing.