#FOLLOWMEGuideBook# The Stock Market's Impact on Our Lives Every weekday from the hours of 10 am to 4 pm 169 billion dollars on average trades hands from one party to another. It’s the New York Stock Exchange and has been trading stocks since 1817. The stock market has a definite impact on our lives (just ask those who lived during The Great Depression.) It is an institution that has made people unfathomably wealthy, along with impossibly poor. Today the New York Stock Exchange has over 2,300 different companies trading stock valued at just over 16 trillion dollars. Currently, there are over one hundred unique stock exchanges throughout the world. A Stock exchange provides a means for companies to raise capital through issuing stock. This process begins when a private company files to issue …show more content… A company reserves the right to raise and lower the exact amount of the dividend via press releases. The New York Stock Exchange was not always the financial giant it is today. When it first began in May of 1792 it only traded five securities, the first of which was the Bank of New York. At the start, only twenty-four brokers were allowed to participate in trading. It wasn’t until 1817 that the New York Stock Exchange began to embody something close to what we know today.