Until the 20th century, the New York Exchange had little to no competition from stock markets in the United States market. Even with little competition, the New York Exchange suffered several market panics, including one of its largest downturns in 1879. Through stock trading and reputation it triumphed over these issues to become by far the most important market in the world in the 19th and 20th centuries. Many countries established national exchanges, but these paled in volume and total market capitalization of listed companies when compared to the NYSE. Market capitalization is the total value of all stocks existing for a said company. NYSE did and still does, lead the entire world in total market capitalization, with the stock of its listed companies currently worth $13.4 trillion [6].