The first stock exchange in America was actually founded in Philadelphia in 1790. The New York merchant group, realizing that their stock exchange was now in decline after the early tumult of revolutionary war bonds and stock in the Bank of the United States, sent an observer to Philadelphia in early 1817. Upon his return, bearing news of the thriving Philadelphia exchange, the New York Stock and Exchange Board was formally organized on March 8, 1817.
Wall Street was new york’s center of commerce.It was potential place to do business. London's stock exchange began as an outdoor market centered on Exchange Alley. By 1725, many London brokers began doing business at Jonathon's Coffee House which was renamed "The Stock Exchange" in 1773.
It was just a matter of time before our new country, The United States of America, would organize formal stock and bond trading. 1792 was the year. In 1792, New York City's population was about 34,000, not including Brooklyn and Queens which were still separate towns. Much of Manhattan had just been rebuilt with brick buildings after the devastating Great Fire of 1776.
In March, 1792, twenty-four of New York City's leading merchants met secretly at Corre's Hotel to discuss ways to bring order to the securities business and to wrest it from their competitors, the auctioneers. Two months later, on May 17, 1792, these merchants signed a document named the Buttonwood Agreement, named after their traditional meeting place, a buttonwood tree. The agreement called for the signers to trade securities only among themselves, to set trading fees, and not to participate in other auctions of securities. These twenty-four men had founded what was to become the New York Stock Exchange.
Then in a building at 22 Wall Street, securities were auctioned every day beginning at noon, sold to the highest bidder. The seller paid the exchange a commission on each stock or bond sold.
Wall Street faced two shocking period. The Wall Street con game, already working full tilt, had convinced millions of Americans that the country was riding on an upward spiraling wave of financial glory. Both rich and poor put their money into stocks and bonds. The Wall Street myth, broadcast by the Insiders' newspapers and magazines, spotlighted stories of shopkeepers and workers making fortunes in the stock market overnight. In 1929 stock prices were 400% higher than they had been in 1924. The Insiders had made their fortunes and could no longer sustain the con, so on October 23, 1929, the market fell 31 points. Stock prices fell an additional 49 points on October 28 and on the 29th the entire market fell apart. Some brokers and investors jumped out of their office windows. The 1929 crash hit the U.S. even harder than the one that was to come in 1987. The fallout from the '29 crash devastated the country, leading to a long-time economic collapse and depression that was to continue until the start of the Second World War in 1941.
The Wall Street crash of 1987 - "Black Monday" - occurred on October 19th. The Dow Jones fell an astounding 508 points, largest one-day loss in the stock market's history. The Insiders running the con game landed on their feet and quickly misdirected the public's attention, laying the blame on computerized (program) trading. Though the cascade of sell orders from large institutions had clogged the system, leaving many individual investors stranded while prices fell, the '87 crash was created by the same Insider specialist group who control every facet of the stock market for their own profit.
