The origin of the NYSE can be traced to May 17, 1792, when the Buttonwood Agreement was signed by twenty-four stock brokers outside of 68 Wall Street in New York under a buttonwood tree. On March 8, 1817, the organization drafted a constitution and renamed itself the "New York Stock & Exchange Board". This name was shortened to its current form in 1863. Anthony Stockholm was elected the Exchange's first president.
The first central location of the NYSE was a room rented for $200 a month in 1817 located at 40 Wall Street. But the volume of stocks traded had increased sixfold in the years between 1896 and 1901 and a larger space was required to conduct business in the expanding marketplace.[1] Eight New York City architects were invited to participate in a design competition for a new building and the Exchange selected the neoclassic design from architect George B. Post. Demolition of the existing building at 10 Broad Street and the adjacent lots started on 10 May 1901.


The New York Stock Exchange building opened at 18 Broad Street on April 22, 1903 at a cost of $4 million. The trading floor was one of the largest volumes of space in the city at the time at 109 x 140 feet wide (33 x 42.5 meters) with a skylight set into a 72 foot high ceiling (22 m.) The main facade of the building features marble sculpture by John Quincy Adams Ward in the pediment, above six tall Corinthian capitals, called “Integrity Protecting the Works of Man”. The building was listed as a National Historic Landmark and added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 2, 1978.[2]


In 1922, a building designed by Trowbridge & Livingston was added at 11 Broad Street for offices, and a new trading floor called "the garage". Additional trading floor space was added in 1969 and 1988 (the "blue room") with the latest technology for information display and communication. Another trading floor was opened at 30 Broad Street in 2000. With the arrival of the Hybrid Market, a greater proportion of trading was executed electronically and the NYSE decided to close the 30 Broad Street trading room in early 2006.



The Exchange was closed shortly after the beginnnning of World War I (July 1914), but it re-opened on November 28 of that year in order to help the war effort by trading bonds.


On September 16, 1920, a bomb exploded on Wall Street outside the NYSE building, killing 33 people and injuring more than 400. The perpetrators were never found. The NYSE building and some buildings nearby, such as the JP Morgan building, still have marks on their facades caused by the bombing.
The Black Thursday crash of the Exchange on October 24, 1929, and the sell-off panic which started on Black Tuesday, October 29, are often blamed for precipitating the Great Depression. In an effort to try to restore investor confidence, the Exchange unveiled a fifteen-point program aimed to upgrade protection for the investing public on October 31, 1938.


On October 1, 1934, the exchange was registered as a national securities exchange with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, with a president and a thirty-three member board. On February 18, 1971 the not-for-profit corporation was formed, and the number of board members was reduced to twenty-five.


Following a 554.26 point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average which was a 22.6% loss in a single day, the biggest ever before in a single day (DJIA) on October 19, 1987, officials at the Exchange for the first time invoked the "circuit breaker" rule to stop trading. This was a very controversial move and prompted a quick change in the rule; trading now halts for an hour, two hours, or the rest of the day when the DJIA drops 10, 20, or 30 percent, respectively. In the afternoon, the 10 and 20% drops will halt trading for a shorter period of time, but a 30% drop will always close the exchange for the day. The rationale behind the trading halt was to give investors a chance to cool off and reevaluate their positions. As a matter of fact, Black Monday was followed by Terrible Tuesday, a day in which the systems did not work and people who wanted to buy or sell shares could not do it trade at all, for reasons still unknown.


Further information: Black Monday (1987) There was a panic similar to many with a fall of 7.2% percentage in value on October 27, 1997 prompted by falls in Asian markets, from which the NYSE recovered quickly.


Further information: October 27, 1997 mini-crash The NYSE was closed from September 11 until September 17, 2001 as a result of the September 11, 2001 attacks.


On September 17, 2003, NYSE chairman and chief executive Richard Grasso stepped down as a result of controversy concerning the size of his deferred compensation package. He was replaced as CEO by John Reed, the former Chairman of Citigroup.


On April 21, 2005, the NYSE announced its plans to acquire Archipelago, in a deal that is intended to bring the NYSE public.


On December 6, 2005, the NYSE's governing board voted to acquire rival Archipelago and become a for-profit, public company. It began trading under the name NYSE Group on March 8, 2006.


On April 4, 2007, the NYSE Group completed its merger with Euronext, forming the NYSE Euronext.
Marsh Carter is the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, succeeding John S. Reed. John Thain is the CEO of the NYSE. Gerald Putnam and Catherine Kinney are the co-Presidents of the NYSE.