(February 8 – 09:30 ET) – Nasdaq is celebrating its 30th anniversary today.

Although the exchange is primarily known as a technology market, 4,700 companies — with representation in every sector — call it home. Nasdaq trades more shares per day and has more non-U.S. listings than any other American market, and has a larger average daily dollar volume than any market in the world.

“Among the dreams from Nasdaq’s early days were, one, to make global capital available to a greatly expanded universe of companies; and two, to expose far more opportunities for participating in dynamic growth companies to the investing public,” said Gordon Macklin, the exchange’s first chair. “The evidence is beyond debate that Nasdaq is fulfilling those dreams. And the prospects for further growth are exciting.”

“Nasdaq has created an entrepreneurial class, a venture capital class that didn’t exit prior to its arrival and brought Wall Street to Main Street,” said current chair Frank Zarb. “In its first complete year of operation-1972-Nasdaq reported trades of about 2.2 billion shares. This year, we average that amount daily. We are well-positioned to be the leader in creating the global, digital stock market of the future.”
-IE Staff