The Nasdaq was founded in 1971, marking the debut of electronic trading

Read about when Nasdaq partnered with the London Stock Exchange in 1992, and other key moments in Nasdaq history

The partnership became the first intercontinental linkage between capital markets, setting the stage for worldwide trading amid increasing globalization. Nasdaq separated from its parent company in 2006, becoming a fully independent licensed national securities exchange. A year later, it added the Scandinavian-based Exchange, OMX.

Key moments in fintech history include the transatlantic cable’s invention and E-Trade’s founding

Founded in 1982, E-Trade was the first-ever online brokerage, pioneering a method of investing that is common today. Its story is part of a timeline that the New York Times put together of key moments in early fintech history.

The Nasdaq 100 index tracks the exchange's 100 largest non-financial companies

This index was created in 1985, over a decade after the Nasdaq first launched. The companies on the index must meet certain criteria, including having a minimum average daily trading value of $5M.

Find out how companies decide which stock exchange to list on

Tech companies often prefer to list on the tech-focused Nasdaq, whereas more traditional organizations opt for the New York Stock Exchange. Sometimes the choice is made partly based on the services an exchange offers a company.

The New York Stock Exchange was started in 1792

When it first opened, traders would meet both outside on the street and in coffee shops to do business. Today, the NYSE is known as one of the most important financial institutions in the world.

The Nasdaq is typically the world's second-largest stock exchange when measured by the total market value of the companies listed on the exchange

However, the Nasdaq sometimes surpasses the NYSE in terms of the total market cap of all the companies listed on each exchange. For instance, as of late April 2026, the Nasdaq's roughly 4,000 listed companies had a total market cap of about $44T, while the NYSE's roughly 2,300 companies' total market cap was around $38T.

What is after-hours trading?

While both the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq open at 9:30 am ET and close at 4 pm ET, some trading is allowed after that. After-hours trading was once only open to institutional investors and people with particularly high net worths. Now, with the advent of computers, anyone can trade stocks anywhere online, and those regulations have broadened.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

As technology evolved, so did Wall Street

Before the telephone was invented in the mid 1800s, people had to trade stocks in person. But once office telephones and computers became commonplace, banks and other financial institutions didn't necessarily need to have their headquarters near exchanges like Wall Street's New York Stock Exchange.

The stock market, explained in 3 minutes

The stock market consists of a set of exchanges and other venues where shares of public companies are bought and sold. The Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange are two of the most well-known exchanges in the US, while major exchanges also operate around the world, including in Tokyo, Shanghai, London, and São Paulo.

A stock market timeline

The stock market has come a long way since the 1600s, when the first version of a stock exchange was created in Amsterdam. Mile markers along the way include everything from the Dow Jones Industrial Average's creation in 1896 to the stock market woes during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

The first US ETF was launched in 1993

Exchange-traded funds are relatively new inventions, and they've grown significantly in popularity during their few decades of existence. They were first created as an alternative to mutual funds. A colorful visualization depicts the entire history of ETFs.

In 1999, Microsoft and Intel’s addition signaled the information tech era for the Dow

Microsoft and Intel became the first information technology firms added to the DJIA. Their inclusion marked a turning point—the digital revolution and tech began to drive the American economy.

The dot-com boom sent tech stocks soaring before a historic collapse

A look at the dot-com bubble, when investors poured money into unproven internet startups, driving the Nasdaq to dizzying heights before it crashed by more than 80% after 2000, showing how new technologies can detach markets from reality.

Why the SEC was started

The Securities and Exchange Commission was created during the Great Depression to restore public trust in financial markets after the 1929 crash. Established in 1934, it enforces transparency, investigates fraud, and protects investors by requiring companies to disclose accurate information and holding violators accountable.

A technological breakthrough altered how Billboard determined what was popular

Before 1991, retail stores manually reported sales to Billboard, which then used those figures as part of its calculations for its weekly charts. In 1991, the magazine began using Nielsen SoundScan, a technology that tracked every unit sold in participating stores, providing a more accurate picture of what consumers were actually buying.

CES debuted in 1967 amid a wave of miniaturization in at-home electronics

The rapid development of integrated circuits—the basis of computing power—in the 1960s catalyzed an industrial shift toward miniature devices, including pocket transistor radios, smaller TVs, and more. This first consumer electronics trade show (with a slate of 117 exhibitors and 17,000 attendees) sought to make everyday electronics accessible and portable. See a timeline of early consumer tech with photos.

The SEC recently approved bitcoin ETFs in landmark investing decision

In January 2024, the US Securities and Exchange Commission made history when it decided to allow fund issuers to launch bitcoin ETFs. This new class of exchange-traded fund tracks spot bitcoin prices, essentially allowing investors to hold bitcoin without actually having to buy the crypto.

Read how Vanguard's founder used the S&P 500 to revolutionize retail investing

John Bogle, the founder of The Vanguard Group, created a fund that tracked the S&P 500 in 1976. That fund created an unprecedented opportunity for individual retail investors, brought down fees across the board, and popularized the belief that passive, low-cost index fund investments would outperform actively managed portfolios long-term.

Coined in 1971, the man credited with naming Silicon Valley was originally writing about semiconductors

Silicon Valley gained its name from an article published in January 1971, in Electronic News. Author Don Hoefler used the term in his headline for an article he was writing about the semiconductor industry. Hoefler is credited with naming the multi-trillion dollar area that is still called Silicon Valley today.

Netflix, explained

From offering an internet-based, mail-order Blockbuster alternative to its eventual status as a market leader in streaming entertainment, Netflix has led nearly every major paradigm shift in the television and movie business since its inception.

Nvidia was founded in a Denny's restaurant

Nvidia is one of a handful of companies valued at more than $1T. In its early days, the semiconductor company sold GPUs, or graphics processing units, that were used for video games. But in recent years, Nvidia’s chips have been used for crypto and AI. Nvidia has faced several setbacks on its journey, including when the US sanctioned chip exports to China.

X (Twitter) started as a way to share short updates via text

What began as a way to share 140-character updates quickly grew into a vital platform for activism, politics, and pop culture. Hashtags, trending topics, and retweets—now common across the internet—originated on the platform.

Read about the day Palantir went public in 2020

After more than 15 years in business, Palantir held its initial public offering (IPO) via a direct listing—meaning the company didn't rely on underwriters to assess the initial trading price or stock value. Palantir's stock ended the day trading 31% higher than the reference price.

Steve Jobs founded NeXT while on a break from Apple

While Steve Jobs was on a hiatus from working at Apple, he founded a company called NeXT and helped lead the release of its operating system NeXTSTEP. The operating system was used to create the first app store of sorts, as well as the first web browser.

Smart contracts are the foundational technology behind NFTs

Smart contracts use “if that, then this” logic to track the ownership of NFTs and record when they are bought and sold on the blockchain.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

Massive blooms of microscopic plankton called dinoflagellates produce the neon blue light seen in glowing tides.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Telehealth demand for GLP-1s for weight loss is booming as consumers seek easier access.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

Some researchers have labeled nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, as 'the phobia of the 21st century.'