Today's Market Players: A User's Guide
Trades may come from a lot of places be transmitted in variety of ways but technically they have to trade somewhere and that is often an exchange. Forty years ago, there was only one major exchange, the New York Stock Exchange, and a clutch of regional ones (Boston, Philadelphia, American, Pacific).
The Nasdaq all electronic, screen-based exchange was founded in 1971, providing an alternative to the open outcry, human floor-based trading of the NYSE. It has become the busiest exchange in the world. Both the NYSE and Nasdaq have merged with or acquired other exchanges in recent years.
Options Exchanges
These exchanges allow investors to trade options, one of the original financial derivatives. It is an option to buy or sell an asset, including securities such as stocks.
Founded in 1973, the CBOE was the first exchange to list standardized, exchange-traded stock options. The International Securities Exchange, or ISE, was the first all electronics options exchange in the US when it launched in 2000. The Nasdaq Options Market, launched in 2008, handles only US options.
