Wall Street is a 1.1km-long-street running eight blocks, roughly from northwest to southeast, from Broadway to South Street on the East River in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. As the time passed, the term has become equivalent for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American Financial sector, or New York-based financial interests.
Anchored by Wall Street, New York City has been called the most economically powerful city and also the leading financial centre of the world. The city is home to the world’s two largest stock exchanges, namely the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. Many other exchanges heave or had headquarters in the Wall Street area which includes the New York Mercantile Exchange, the New York Board of Trade and the former American Stock Exchange.
The stock market collapsed in 1929, in what is at present known as the Wall Street Crash. Basically, this was the result of prices of stocks and shares falling suddenly after rising gradually throughout the 1920s. During these 10 years, as more and more money was invested by people, the value of stocks and shares ended up rising to the point that they were valued at much more than they were actually worth.
As some investors began to realise this, they decided to sell their investments to cash in on them. Panic selling soon followed which caused share prices to suddenly fall, with the first large drop in their value which occurred on Thursday 24th October 1929.
The following Monday and Tuesday, more traders decided to sell which resulted in a collapse of the market. These days are all known as Black Thursday, Black Monday and also Black Tuesday. Many people believe that the Wall Street Crash was a major cause of the Great Depression which affected the economies of many countries during the 1930s.
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