Wall Street

Article By: Dan Hill

4 years ago

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Culture-Landmark Settlement-Neighbourhood

Although Wall Street has become synonymous with references to the big financial institutions in the US, it is actually an 8 block thoroughfare between Broadway and the East River in Lower Manhattan. The actual financial district, housing the multitudes of brokerage firms that support the exchange, extends way beyond this street. There were, at one point, 6 major exchanges on Wall Street: The New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, the American Stock Exchange, the New York Mercantile Exchange the New York Futures Exchange and the New York Board of Trade. The New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ remain the world's two largest exchanges by market-capitalisation - that is the sum of all the tradable securities on their markets - at almost $23 and $11 billion dollars respectively. The next largest in the world is the Japanese Exchange, with $5.8 billion market-cap. If you start at the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway, and walk down Wall Street for 2 blocks and look right, you will see the grand entrance to the New York Stock Exchange - on the corner with Broad Street. These days, many exchanges no longer have a trading floor where dealers (with their distinctive coloured jackets that indicate which firm they deal for) interact - most transactions of stocks take place between 2 computer systems. In fact, from 2000-2010 I was myself a software developer creating systems that trade on these markets - but that's another story. Located only a few blocks from the former World Trade Center, the attacks of 9/11 also destroyed the communication networks that were vital to the New York Stock Exchange. Many of the financial firms that trade on Wall Street also rented offices in the World Trade Center towers - and it is estimated that up to 45% of the office space required by Wall Street firms were destroyed in the attacks. Many firms have since relocated to New Jersey, Mid Town Manhattan, or other cities, such as Chicago. It was in 1789, that the first US president - George Washington - was inaugurated on Wall Street. As a tourist, the main reason to visit here is to see the world's central financial hub and the New York Stock Exchange entrance with your own eyes. There's not much more to it than that. If you've ever got excited by movies like The Wolf of Wall Street, or Oliver Stone's Wall Street - then you can now put a face to a place. To get to Wall Street, you can use one of the 3 Metro stops, the ferry terminal, grab a cab, or, if you're a tourist, walk. Photo Credits: 1. Photo by Aditya Vyas on Unsplash 2. Image by Alexander Naumann from Pixaba