Which is the oldest stock exchange in the world?

The Amsterdam Stock Exchange is commonly regarded as the world’s oldest modern stock exchange.

Its origins date to 1602, when the Dutch East India Company, known as the VOC, issued shares to investors. Those shares could then be resold, creating an organized secondary market. This was a major development: investors were no longer limited to holding an enterprise until its voyages ended, because they could transfer ownership to someone else.

Amsterdam’s market built on earlier commodity-trading traditions, so the phrase “oldest stock exchange” usually means the oldest modern securities market rather than the first place where any kind of financial contract was traded. The exchange later became known as the Amsterdam Bourse and eventually formed part of Euronext.

The market also helped popularize practices associated with modern finance, including tradable equity, limited liability, and organized share dealing. London and New York later became dominant international centers, but they were established after Amsterdam’s seventeenth-century securities market.