215th Anniversary of the NYSE

215 years ago today, on May 17, 1792, twenty-four brokers and merchants met met under a buttonwood (sycamore) tree at 68 Wall Street in New York City and signed the Buttonwood Agreement, establishing the New York Stock Exchange. Unlike today's business agreements, this agreement was very short:

"We the Subscribers, Brokers for the Purchase and Sale of the Public Stock, do hereby solemnly promise and pledge ourselves to each other, that we will not buy or sell from this day for any person whatsoever, any kind of Public Stock, at least than one quarter of one percent Commission on the Specie value and that we will give preference to each other in our Negotiations. In Testimony whereof we have set our hands this 17th day of May at New York, 1792."

The NYSE wasn't the first US stock exchange; Philadelphia established its stock exchange two years earlier.

The stock of the Bank of New York was the first security traded under the buttonwood tree, and continues to trade on the New York Stock Exchange today, well over two hundred years later.