Once there was a time when shares in business corporations were rarely bought and sold because few companies were considered promising financial profits (Blume 21). That is hard to believe considering almost everybody has invested in some stock today. The stock market went through some distinct changes since its inception, and has evolved into a shaping force in the world today. There is one idea that sparked the fire which produced the stock market: capitalism. Everything the stock market is, and was, rooted in the basic idea of capitalism. Without that idea, stocks and bonds would never have come to be. Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market (Peterson). When a person buys a stock, that means they own a part of the company in which they invested. The average person can thereby invest in a public company and receive a piece of that company's success, or failure. This process helps not only the smart investors, but the companies as well. The investors' money must go somewhere, and that place is the treasury of the company they endorsed (Simonson). The company then uses that money for its financial needs, providing the company an income in addition to simple sales profits. Then, the investors make or lose money based on how much that company makes. Basically, people invest in an idea, and make money based on how that idea performs in the real world (Blume 35-39). While the stock market is based upon capitalism, this type of enterprise was shunned by the community in 1792 because of financial panic (Blume 23). However, these practices were not shunned by all America in 1792. People wanted a way to trade stocks without the public stock auctions (which were banned because of lack of profits), so they tried something different than stock auctions. The insti...
