The History of the American Stock Exchange
The industrial revolution of the early 19th century saw the nascence of many fast-growing railroad and construction companies which were eager to join the stock exchange. Many of these new companies, however, could not meet the 100-stock mandate of the New York Exchange Board. Seeing the need for a different exchange system, a group of non-member brokers left the halls of the Board Exchange and went to the streets outside to cater to the small companies excluded from the official market, thus earning the name “curbstone brokers” for themselves. In the latter half of the 19th century, oil stocks entered the curb market, while the end of the American Civil War ushered in small industrial companies, such as iron and steel, textiles, and chemicals. The new market was growing fast. Thus, at the turn of the 20th century the New York Market Agency was established to regulate the outdoor market’s trading practices and by 1911 the New York Curb Market had a formal constitution with brokerage and listing standards. The open-air market finally moved indoors to a building on Greenwich Street in Lower Manhattan in 1921. The organisation went through another renaming in 1929 to the New York Curb Exchange, before it finally settled on the name by which it is still (unofficially) known today: The American Stock Exchange, or AMEX. Just as at its origin the company offered a market for companies with growth potential, so today it helps smaller corporations grow and prosper as part of the NYSE Euronext community.