Interesting Stock Market Facts

Just about everyone knows about the great crash in 1929, and the dot-com bubble throughout 1997–2000. Here are 10 Interesting Stock Market Facts that you may not know.

#1

The first stock exchange in the U.S. was the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, founded in 1790.

#2

The Buttonwood Agreement, which essentially started the NYSE, was signed in May 1792 when 24 brokers and merchants met on Wall Street in New York and agreed to allow securities to be traded on a commission basis.

#3

The NASDAQ stock exchange began trading in 1971, making it the world’s first electronic stock market. At first, it was merely a computer bulletin board system, which was mostly an over-the-counter (OTC) system of trading.

#4

There are currently 13 registered stock exchanges operating in the U.S.

#5

The NYSE followed by the NASDAQ and then the BATS Global Markets currently rank as the top 3 equities exchange operators in the world in terms of value of shares traded.

#6

On an average daily basis, more than $250 billion worth of stock (notional value) is traded on U.S. exchanges

#7

It takes less than 200 microseconds for an order to be acknowledged and/or filled on an electronic market such as the NASDAQ or the BATS Exchanges.

#8

On March 13, 1933, the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 15.34%, the largest one-day percentage gain in history.

#9

On October 19, 1987 (also known as Black Monday), the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 22.61%, the largest one-day percentage loss in history.

#10

In 2005, the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates financial markets, passed Regulation National Market System (Reg NMS) to improve fairness in stock price execution and foster competition among stock trading venues. Reg NMS resulted in a dramatic shift to electronic trading.