On February 8, 1971 NASDAQ began trading. A little history. The term Wall Street comes from a street in New York City next to a wall that was built to keep Native Americans out. The traders of stocks, usually land contracts or parts of ships’ cargo, were sold to people outdoors against the wall. As time went on, things got bigger and some of the more wealthy traders decided to move indoors, but to trade there you had to pay a fee. They became the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The less affluent traders did not move in at that time. They kept meeting outside for years until they moved indoors and became the American Stock Exchange (ASE). Later NYSE bought ASE so they are like the Super Bowl with both NFL and AFL owned by the same company.