Buttonwood Agreement Day: The Birth of the New York Stock Exchange

As early as the mid 1700’s, our nation’s financial traders could be found in action on the streets of lower Manhattan. It was during these years brokers, merchants and auctioneers bought and sold to one another in offices, coffee houses, and marketplaces all over town. In the 1790’s, speculative excess, combined with the lack of a formal trading structure, left the future of our nation’s markets in question.

On May 17, 1792, a group of two dozen traders gathered at their regular meeting place, a buttonwood tree at 68 Wall Street, and made the decision to organize their trading. “The Buttonwood Agreement”, as this arrangement would later come to be known, helped to create liquidity and gave birth to The New York Stock Exchange. Membership on the NYSE has been held as a valuable property since 1868. Until recently, members could only join by purchasing existing seats, which were limited to a total of 1,366. In April 2006, the NYSE went both electronic and public, by merging with the already publicly traded Archipelago electronic stock exchange. According to  ADVFN , “The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is the leading stock exchange in the world. The exchange trades stocks for some 2,800 companies ranging from blue chips to new high-growth companies.”

Buttonwood Financial Group LLC, fulfilling the role of The Family CFO, was founded almost 20 years ago on the basis of simplifying the complexity created by wealth. The Buttonwood Team brings personalized financial organization to each of our clients. Through a combination of both investment management and the implementation of retirement, estate, tax, insurance, cash flow, business and other strategies, the lessons taught by our forefathers come to light every day.

You are the CEO of your family; are you ready for a Family CFO to design and implement the steps to an organized and coordinated financial life? Contact us today to get started by visiting our  Contact Page , emailing us at  Info@ButtonwoodFG.com , or calling at 816-285-9000.