The oldest and largest
stock exchange in the U.S., located on
Wall Street in New York City. The Big
Board is responsible for setting
policy,
supervising member
activities,
listing securities, overseeing the
transfer of member
seats, and evaluating
applicants. It traces its origins back to 1792, when a
group of
brokers met under a tree at the tip of Manhattan and signed an
agreement to
trade securities. Unlike some of the newer
exchanges, the Big Board still
uses a large
trading floor in
order to
conduct its
transactions. It is here that the
representatives of
buyers and
sellers,
professionals known as brokers, meet and shout out prices at one another in order to
strike a
deal. This is called the
open outcry system and it usually
produces fair
market pricing. In order to facilitate the
exchange of
stocks, the Big Board employs
individuals called
specialists who are assigned to manage the buying and
selling of specific stocks and to
buy those stocks when no one else will. Of the exchanges, the Big Board has the most stringent
set of
requirements in place for the
companies whose stocks it lists, and even
meeting these requirements is not a
guarantee that the Big Board will list the
company.
also called New York Stock Exchange (
NYSE).
