NYSE American Stock Exchange

The NYSE American was originally founded in 1908 as the New York Curb Market Agency. This refers to the way the exchange grew out of what is known as curbstone brokers – brokers that would trade on the curbside of the financial district. For over a decade, the institution formalised this sort of trading and acted in competition to the New York Stock Exchange.

In 1921, the curbstone brokers moved indoors to their new building and became the New York Curb Exchange. The growth that followed this move was exponential, with the exchange soon becoming the world’s leading international stock exchange. The exchange continued to perform impressively, and in 1953 was renamed as the American Stock Exchange.

In the early 1960s, the American Stock Exchange was forced to reorganise after a scandal relating to mismanagement, and this had an adverse effect on its performance but the exchange pulled through. By the early 1970s it was the USA’s second-largest stock exchange, and had a good reputation on social issues – having listed its first African-American owned company (Johnson Products Company) in 1971.

In 2008, NYSE bought out AMEX for $260 million in stock, and introduced it into the group of existing exchanges. This move enhanced the NYSE’s scale when it came to ETFs, US options, structured products, and closed-end funds. The exchange was rebranded the NYSE American, the name it still trades under today.

The main index for the NYSE American Stock Exchange is the NYSE Composite Index. This index tracks the performance of all the stocks traded on the exchange and gives valuable insight into the US economy.