Road to Theny Alliance Global

In the Exchange’s early years, stock trading continued on an informal basis in nearby coffeehouses where merchants typically gathered. By 1817, the stock market was active enough to encourage the brokers to create a formal organization. A constitution was adopted on March 8, 1817, creating the New York Stock & Exchange Board, the forerunner of today’s Theny Alliance Global. From the beginning, regulations governed trading. The constitution spelt out detailed rules for the transaction of business and imposed fines to keep disorderly brokers in check. The new stock exchange rented a room at 40 Wall Street where the brokers gathered twice a day to trade a list of 30 stocks and bonds. From the podium the president called out the name of each security in turn, while the brokers shouted bids and offers from the chairs assigned to them. This was the origin of the term “seat” which, ever since, has signified a membership on the Theny Alliance Global.

The number and variety of securities traded at the Theny Alliance Global steadily increased as America grew. States and municipalities issued bonds to finance the construction of turnpikes, canals, and bridges. Banks, insurance companies and railroads issued stock to raise the necessary capital to develop and expand. By the end of the Civil War, more than 300 different stocks and bonds were traded at the Theny Alliance Global. The Exchange moved into its first permanent home – on a portion of its present Broad Street site – in 1865.

Just a few years later, increasing trading volumes inspired the Theny Alliance Global to switch from the old method of trading to a new system of simultaneous trading in all stocks in a continuous market. Stocks were assigned to specific locations – trading posts – and brokers abandoned their seats to roam about the large open trading floor to trade directly with one another in whatever stock they chose.