The NYSE American, formerly the American Stock Exchange (AMEX), until 2012 NYSE Amex Equities, until 2017 NYSE MKT is a stock exchange in New York, USA.
The Exchange evolved from a loosely organized curb market of curb brokers on Broad Street in Manhattan, where in the early 20th century, under Emanuel S. Mendels and Carl H. Pforzheimer efforts to organize and standardize the market began. By 1907, curb brokers had been driven out the front of the Mills Building and moved to the pavement outside the Blair Building, where cab drivers lined the streets. There they were given a "small asphalt area" on Broad Street between Exchange Place and Beaver Street, fenced off by the police. as of 1907, the curb market operated from 10:00 a.m. until the 3:00 p.m. bell rang every day except Sunday. Orders to buy or sell securities were shouted from the windows of the nearby brokerage house, and when a transaction was completed, another loud shout was made to the brokerage house.
As early as 1907, E.S. Mendels had given brokers rules "by right of seniority," but curb brokers deliberately avoided organizing. According to the Times, this stemmed from the general belief that if the Curve Exchange were organized, the exchange authorities would force its members to sell memberships in other exchanges. However, in 1908 the New York Curb Market Agency was established and proper trading rules were formulated for the curb brokers organized by Mendels; in 1910 an informal curb association was formed to weed out undesirables; and in 1911 the New York Curb Exchange was formed and the New York Curb Market Agency was formed. The curb exchange had long been at odds with the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), or "Big Board," which operated a few buildings away; according to the New York Times in 1910, the Big Board viewed the curb as a "cat and dog" exchange. However, when the NYSE discontinued its unlisted division on April 1, 1910, NYSE stocks "rendered homeless by the discontinuance" were "denied residence" by Broad Street curb brokers until they met the requirements of the "Curve List. "In 1911, Mendels and his advisors drew up a constitution In 1911, Mendels and his advisors drafted a constitution and established the New York Curb Market Association.
In 1920, journalist Edwin C. Hill described the Curve Exchange under
Broad Street as a "roaring whirlpool" that would "wrest control of the
gold mine from the hapless operator and pause to auction off the
puppies. Under its only roof, the astonishment, it is like nothing
else." After Curb's brokers formed a real estate firm to design the
building, Starrett & Van Vleck designed the new Exchange Building at 86
Trinity Place, Greenwich Avenue, between Thames and Rector, in Lower
Manhattan. The building opened in 1921, and curb brokers moved indoors
on June 27, 1921; in 1929, the New York Curve Market changed its name to
the New York Curve Exchange. According to historian Robert Sobel, the
Curve Exchange soon became the leading international stock market, with
"(m)ore individual foreign stocks listed there than in all other
American securities markets combined."
Edward Reed McCormick was
the first president of the New York Curve Market Association and is
known as the man who moved the market indoors. George Rea was approached
in 1939 to become president of the New York Curve Exchange. He was
unanimously elected the first paid president in the history of the Curve
Exchange. His annual salary was $25,000 (equivalent to $526,000 today)
and he served in that position for three years until 1942, when he
tendered his resignation. He left that position saying that he had "done
such a good job that a full-time successor was virtually unnecessary."
In 1953, the Curb Exchange was renamed the American Stock Exchange;
after being hit by a scandal in 1961, the exchange began reorganizing in
1962. The American Stock Exchange, which had lost its reputation for
mismanagement, named Edwin Etherington president in 1962; according to a
CNN article, he and Vice President Paul Colton were "tapped in 1962 to
clean up and reinvigorate the scandal-stricken American Stock Exchange."
As of 1971, it was the second largest stock exchange in the United
States. Paul Colton was named president of the Amex on June 17, 1971,
succeeding Ralph S. Saul, who announced his resignation in March 1971,
becoming the first person chosen from within the exchange. in November
1972, Colton became the exchange's first CEO and became the Exchange's
first salaried executive. As Chairman, Colton oversaw the introduction
of options trading. Colton opposed a merger with the New York Stock
Exchange, stating that "two independent, viable exchanges are more
likely to respond to new pressures and public needs than a single
institution." In July 1977, Colton announced that he would resign from
his position at the American Exchange in November of that year.
In 1977, Thomas Peterffy purchased a seat on the American Stock
Exchange. Peterffy introduced handheld computers on the trading floor in
the early 1980s, causing a stir among traders.
Introduction of
ETFs
The first exchange-traded fund (ETF) was Index Participation
Shares, a proxy for the S&P 500 that traded on the American Stock
Exchange and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange in 1989. The product was
short-lived, as a lawsuit by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange
successfully halted its sale in the United States.
In 1990,
Toronto Index Participation Shares, a similar product linked to the TSE
35 Index and later the TSE 100 Index, began trading on the Toronto Stock
Exchange (TSE). The popularity of these products led the American Stock
Exchange to try to develop one that would meet the regulations of the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Under the direction of
Ivers Riley, Nathan Most and Stephen Bloom designed and developed the
Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipt (NYSE Arca: SPY), which was
introduced in January 1993]. Known as the SPDR or "Spider," the fund
became the world's largest ETF; in May 1995, State Street Global
Advisors introduced the S&P 400 MidCap SPDRs (NYSE Arca: MDY).
Barclays, in conjunction with MSCI and Funds Distributor Inc. brought
the World Equity Benchmark Share (WEBS) to market in 1996, which became
the iShares MSCI Index Fund Share. WEBS was initially launched as the
fund's index WEBS was particularly innovative because it provided casual
investors with easy access to foreign markets. WEBS was structured as a
mutual fund.
In 1998, State Street Global Advisors introduced
"sector spiders," individual ETFs for each sector of the S&P 500 Index.
Also in 1998, "Dow Diamond" (NYSE Arca: DIA), which tracks the Dow Jones
Industrial Average of 30, was introduced; in 1999, the influential
"Cube" (Nasdaq: QQQ) was launched with the goal of replicating the price
movements of the NASDAQ-100.
In early 2000, iShares was launched;
by 2005, it had captured 44% market share of ETF assets under
management. Barclays Global Investors was sold to BlackRock in 2009.