Stocks were first created as a way to raise capital for large ventures, with the earliest formal stock offerings tracing back to the Dutch East India Company in the early 17th century. The company’s public trading of shares and payment of dividends is widely credited as launching the modern concept of a stock market, and Amsterdam established the first official stock exchange to facilitate that trading around 1602-1605. From there, stock trading spread to other European centers and eventually across the world, leading to the development of organized stock exchanges in cities such as London, Paris, and later in the United States with early venues like Philadelphia and, more famously, the Buttonwood Agreement era in New York.
