Wall Street

Wall Street is a street running eight blocks, roughly northwest to southeast, from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan in the financial district of New York City. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial sector (even if financial firms are not physically located there), or signifying New York-based financial interests. Wall Street is the home of the New York Stock Exchange, the world’s largest stock exchange by overall average daily trading volume and by total market capitalization of its listed companies. Several other major exchanges have or had headquarters in the Wall Street area, including NASDAQ, the New York Mercantile Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, and the former American Stock Exchange. Anchored by Wall Street, New York City has been called the world’s principal financial center, only rivalled by the City of London & Canary Wharf in London.