I l @ ve RuBoard |
Back in 1792, 24 men showed up to trade stocks under a buttonwood tree and pronounced that location as their future stock-trading marketplace . The road next to the buttonwood tree had been named for a blockade wall built earlier to keep Manhattan settlers safe from marauding Indians and pirates. I'm not making this up. That market and its humble beginnings eventually evolved into today's mammoth New York Stock Exchange, and the corresponding road next to the blockade wall became known as Wall Street, synonymous with today's financial world.
Plain English
The markets is a term referring to the centralized physical locations and the computer networks at which the business of trading stocks is conducted .
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is, hands down, the world's most famous and powerful exchange as well as the largest stock exchange in the world. The ramifications of a day's trades at this exchange are worldwide and affect commerce and governments alike. For all its bedlam though, the NYSE trades only about 1,600 of the country's biggest stocks. "Biggest" meaning no company with less than $18 million in assets or less than 1.1 million issued shares need apply for a listing. Although the stock you purchase may be listed on the exchange, this is definitely not the arena for individual investors. It is, however, a super-cool place to visit if you are ever in New York. The exchange offers tours that prove the movies are neither lying nor exaggerating when they portray the exchange as a bedlam of screaming and waving.
I l @ ve RuBoard |