London Stock Exchange
There are few stock exchanges in the world that are as old as the one in London, in fact the history of stock trading was largely written in London. That being said it was done more informally than it was in most other places for a long time so the actual exchange is not as old as some of the others. Nevertheless the history that goes into trading stocks in the city is largely retained by the exchange.
The London Stock Exchange is the largest exchange in Europe and it is also one of the oldest. Although the official exchange was founded in 1801 the history actually goes back a lot further than that. The first stocks were traded in the late seventeenth century when it became necessary to raise money for overseas exploration. The first stock trading was done informally in coffee houses but the process soon became more official. Not long after stocks started to be traded it became pretty obvious that it was necessary to control who could and couldn't trade stocks. This led to the requirement that to trade stocks you had to be a member of the exchange.
The biggest incident in the founding of the London Stock Exchange was the South Seas Bubble in 1720. This occurred when excessive speculation pushed the company's stock price up to extremely high levels only to see it come crashing back down again. This led to a public outcry and the government started regulating stock brokers much more closely. This is what led to the move out of the coffee houses and into a formal exchange. After a period in which they had several different locations they finally settled on one in Threadneedle Street in 1801 and the London Stock Exchange was officially born.
In recent years the exchange has moved again because of the need for a bigger building and the need to upgrade the technology that is used for trading. Although the London Stock Exchange still relies on brokers on the floor for trading they also know allow computer trading with these orders being routed to the floor traders. Over the years the exchange has added a number of other services, the most notable of these being the ability to trade derivatives.
In recent years there have been quite a number of stock exchanges merging with each other; mainly this is done as a way to reduce costs by allowing them to get the most out of their resources. As a result of this the London Stock Exchange is currently negotiating with the Toronto Stock Exchange about a merger. The merger will not only create one of the biggest exchanges in the world but it will also create one that operates on two continents making it much easier for investors in both locations to trade stocks from other parts of the world.