I heard on the radio today a casual mention of the Parisian Stock Market Crash of 1720. It made me start to wonder how long humans have traded stock. Does anybody know how "stock" itself actually developed in the first place? When it went from being a domestic commodity to an international one?
It seems like such a contemporary concept to me. I am eager to understand how it has evolved through time.
The Venetians traded in government securities as early as the 13th century, though the Dutch pioneered the first modern joint stock venture in their East India Company at the beginning of the 17th. There were other companies that issued shares before, but the EIC (or VOC) made Amsterdam the world's first major financial market. It can be argued that the subsequently standardized investments that followed enabled the flowering of the Dutch Golden Age.