New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), sometimes known as the “Big Board“, is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street,Lower Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. It is by far the world’s largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at US$16.613 trillion as of May 2013. Average daily trading value was approximately US$169 billion in 2013.

The NYSE trading floor is located at 11 Wall Street and is composed of four rooms used for the facilitation of trading. A fifth trading room, located at 30 Broad Street, was closed in February 2007. The main building, located at 18 Broad Street, between the corners of Wall Street and Exchange Place, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978, as was the 11 Wall Street building.

The NYSE is operated by NYSE Euronext (NYSE: NYX), which was formed by the NYSE’s 2007 merger with the fully electronic stock exchange Euronext. In December 2012, it was announced that the company was being sold to Intercontinental Exchange(ICE), a futures exchange headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, for $8 billion, a figure that is significantly less than the $11 billion bid for the company tendered in 2011. NYSE and Euronext now operate as divisions to IntercontinentalExchange.

The NYSE has been the subject of several lawsuits regarding fraud or breach of duty and was sued by its former CEO for breach of contract and defamation.

In the mid-1960s, the NYSE Composite Index (NYSE: NYA) was created, with a base value of 50 points equal to the 1965 yearly close. This was done to reflect the value of all stocks trading at the exchange instead of just the 30 stocks included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. To raise the profile of the composite index, in 2003 the NYSE set its new base value of 5,000 points equal to the 2002 yearly close. Its close at the end of 2013 was 10,400.32.