New York City is a city of many dreams, as well as being one of the busiest cities in the world. And in the heart of it lies historic Wall Street, where the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) had its humble beginnings.
In the 18th century at the foot of Wall Street there was a buttonwood tree where traders and speculators would meet there and trade informally. Eventually the traders got organized and created the Buttonwood Agreement, took office space and eventually evolved the stock trade into the "New York Stock Exchange Board." And today, we know it as the New York Stock Exchange or NYSE for short.
A stock exchange is a corporation that provides trading facilities for brokers and traders to trade stocks and other securities. Nowadays, the NYSE is the world's largest cash equities market due to the net wealth of the public companies that are listed. There is about $10 trillion worth of securities that are represented through the NYSE.
Only authorized traders are allow in the NYSE and common people are not; especially since the September 11 attacks on the World Financial Trade Centers in 2001, the NYSE and many other financial locations in New York have heighten their security to prevent any attacks. If you are curious to know what the NYSE looks like from the inside, there have been many movies filmed in the NYSE that featured the trading floor as a central location. It shows a true depiction of how business operates and how hectic the trading can be with traders shouting and making signals buying and selling equities. Even though you cannot enter the NYSE, if you're planning on visiting New York City, you can always go to the Financial District and take a tour of the surrounding areas.
