Editing Stock exchange (section)

===18th century===
One of history's greatest [[financial bubble]]s occurred around 1720. At the center of it were the [[South Sea Company]], set up in 1711 to conduct English trade with South America, and the [[Mississippi Company]], focused on commerce with France's Louisiana colony and touted by transplanted Scottish financier [[John Law (economist)|John Law]], who was acting in effect as France's central banker. Investors snapped up shares in both, and whatever else was available. In 1720, at the height of the mania, there was even an offering of "a company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is".

By the end of that same year, share prices had started collapsing, as it became clear that expectations of imminent wealth from the Americas were overblown. In London, Parliament passed the [[Bubble Act]], which stated that only royally chartered companies could issue public shares. In Paris, Law was stripped of office and fled the country. Stock trading was more limited and subdued in subsequent decades. Yet the market survived, and by the 1790s shares were being traded in the young United States. On May 17, 1792, the [[New York Stock Exchange]] opened under a ''[[Platanus occidentalis]]'' (buttonwood tree) in [[New York City]], as 24 stockbrokers signed the [[Buttonwood Agreement]], agreeing to trade five securities under that buttonwood tree.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.loc.gov/rr/business/hottopic/stock_market.html | title=History of the NY Stock Exchange | publisher=[[Library of Congress]] | date=May 2004 | access-date=22 March 2019 | archive-date=4 April 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160404085759/http://loc.gov/rr/business/hottopic/stock_market.html | url-status=live }}</ref>