When the Industrial Revolution came to the United States in the mid-1800s, companies began to rapidly expand and they needed money for this. At that time, companies realized that investors would buy stocks or partial ownership in the company, and this would provide the companies with the funds necessary to expand. At the same time, investors also realized that they could make a profit off the company stocks they already held by re-selling them to people who saw a value in the future of the company. This created the secondary market or speculative market, which was driven by the speculation of investors. It was during this time that the potential of the stock market became clear to both investors and companies.
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is where it all started- It was in 1792 when 24 men who were New York merchants signed an agreement stating, “We will trade securities between ourselves, with established commission rates”. Granted, people had been trading securities for years before that, but there was no “central exchange” in which to do business. From that humble beginning, it grew into the global leader of financial transactions, and is by far the biggest stock exchange in existence. The NYSE is where the world turns as far as the financial markets go.
In the early 1900′s, massive amounts of money were made on Wall Street. While many people realized that the markets could not sustain a boom forever, very few publicized this view, choosing instead to let the market be its own arbitrator. Millions of dollars were traded in the market and the market continued to flourish until the crash of 1929.
The 1929 Stock Market Crash is the most famous crash in U.S. history. The U.S “great depression” followed. People who had no knowledge of the stock market had borrowed big to invest in stocks- Making the fatal mistake of believing the stock market was a one-way street to fame and fortune. The 1929 crash was stunning by any measure. The Dow dropped 89%. It followed an impressive bull market that had been going on for the better part of a decade. The Dow Industrials did not get back to that level in 1929 until the end 1954.
For a while the economy eventually recovered from its catastrophic losses, but the market excesses that had factored into the crash in the late 1920s came back into the picture. The result was the stock market crash of 1987, which saw the Dow Jones suffer what was the largest single-day loss in the stock market’s history.
Since then, the government and the industry have tried to put measures in place to prevent, if not entirely eliminate, the possibility of such a large-scale crash again. The stock markets are now an integral part of the global economy, so proper safeguards to reduce the risks of another disastrous crash are necessary. But while efforts have been made to reduce the risk, the possibility for another stock market crash can never be ruled out.
Today, the New York and the American Stock Exchanges, have been joined by the NASDAQ, and hundreds of local and international Stock Exchanges, that all play a part in the national and global economy. In New York City alone, stock transactions amount to over 2.2 trillion dollars each day. Almost every large company in the US and around the world is traded on a Stock Exchange.
There have been some grand profits and losses with the stock market and since no two investors are exactly alike, and there are millions of investors, no one can predict what the stock market will do in the future. But looking at some statistics about where to put your money, investing in the stock market is the best way to increase your capital. Over the long term, the stock market has typically risen in value. Yet the market’s rise can’t be traced on a straight line. Despite some substantial highs and lows, the U.S. stock market (measured by Standard & Poor’s 500 Composite Index, a selection of stocks that mirror the broader market) has provided an average annual compound return of 12.5% over the past 30 years through December 31, 2006.