Amsterdam Stock Exchange
The Amsterdam Stock Exchange is the Dutch stock exchange with headquarters in Amsterdam , which has been incorporated into the NYSE Euronext stock exchange conglomerate since 2000 .
history
The Amsterdam Stock Exchange was opened in 1611 as a commodity exchange ( Goederenbeurs in Dutch ). From 1612 securities trading also took place. Contrary to popular belief, the Amsterdam Stock Exchange is not the oldest commodity exchange, but it is considered the oldest securities exchange in the world.
The first Amsterdam stock exchange building of the early modern period was built between 1608 and 1611 based on a design by Hendrick de Keyser and had to be demolished in 1835 to accommodate a new building based on a design by Jan David Zocher the Elder. J. to make way. Its unpopular classicist building only stood from 1845 to 1903. The third and still preserved stock exchange building, opened in 1903, occupies such a prominent place in Dutch architectural history that the name of the builder Hendrik Petrus Berlage has long been transferred to the building, the Beurs van Berlage is called 'Börse von Berlage' .
Emergence
The Netherlands at the beginning of the 17th century was characterized by enormous economic expansion, which is why the epoch is also known as its golden age . The most important branches of trade were the Baltic Sea trade , trade with Russia and the straatvaart (trade with Italy and the Levant , the countries on the east coast of the Mediterranean ). So it was only logical that in 1609 the Amsterdam Exchange Bank - the world's first central bank - was founded, which was able to organize and promote payment transactions, which until then had been made difficult by the multitude of currencies in circulation. In addition, favorable interest rates, fixed exchange rates and a high willingness to borrow from the Dutch bank soon attracted investors and financiers from all over Europe. Within a short time, the Amsterdam exchange bank played an enormously important international role, which also boosted the turnover of goods in Amsterdam.
The trading of goods in Amsterdam in the early 17th century took place in the open air mainly in the Warmoesstraat and on the square de Dam by the City Hall and the Waage, in the immediate vicinity of which the berths on the Amstel were for sailing ships. Its rapid growth made it necessary to have its own building in which trading could be carried out in a structured manner whatever the weather and any season.
Commodity exchange
Movable goods such as raw materials , agricultural products or food are traded on a commodity exchange. Commodity exchanges are only of practical importance for natural products, but not for industrial products. Prices were determined by supply and demand and purchases were made immediately; Speculations through systematic forward transactions ( commodity futures ) were not yet common on the stock exchange at that time; that didn't emerge until the middle of the 19th century. The contemporary tulip trade , which led to a tulip mania that made the tulip a cult object , but also an unrestrained object of speculation, took place mainly in inns in and around Haarlem , where the tulip fields were.
It is often said that the Amsterdam stock exchange was the first commodity exchange worldwide or Europe-wide, on the other hand it is often said that the oldest commodity exchange in the world is located in Chicago. Both are unfounded. Other commodity exchanges are significantly older than the Amsterdam ones. In 1409 the first stock exchange was founded in Bruges ; this is where the name developed, see the origin of the term "stock exchange" . The oldest German commodity exchanges were established in Augsburg and Nuremberg in 1540 ; the Lyon Stock Exchange was probably founded in the same year . Commodity exchanges are altogether several centuries older than commodity futures and securities exchanges . While the largest and oldest futures exchange in the world was established in Chicago in 1848 ( Chicago Board of Trade ), the Amsterdam Stock Exchange is the oldest stock exchange that has been trading in securities since 1612.
The first stock exchange building
The first Amsterdam commodity exchange was built where Amsterdam's financial, commercial and administrative center and city center had been located at least since the 13th century: on and around Platz de Dam . In 1608, Hendrick de Keyser began construction on the southern part of the square, partly above the Rokin, as commissioned, and it was inaugurated in 1611.
The complex consisted of an inner courtyard, which was lined with covered galleries on round arches. Shops were initially on the ground floor, and later the Royal Academy of Fine Arts ( Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten ). From Platz de Dam there was an entrance to the stock exchange building, the beurspoortje 'Börsentörchen' (today's passage is no longer the original gate, which was removed in 1912). On the south side, next to the bridge over the central passage, there was a bell tower with a carillon by François Hemony .
In addition to the commodity exchange ( goederenbeurs ), which was housed in the Great Hall, there was a separate, not much smaller hall in which only grain was traded ( graanbeurs ).
Securities trading (from 1623)
At about the same time as the opening of the Amsterdam Commodity Exchange, a new type of trading emerged: trading in securities , i.e. stocks and shares. It was created by the Dutch East India Company ( Dutch Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie , VOC), a trading company that dominated world trade in the 17th and 18th centuries. It controlled the shipping routes to Asia, the spice route to rear India and had a trade monopoly for South Africa and South America, which the Dutch parliament had granted it. Their only serious competition was the East India Company ( English English East India Company EIC), which, however, could not prevail in Entferntesten against the VOC.
The use of the monopoly, however, required a considerable financial outlay, which the company could not raise with its own resources and in 1602 decided to finance the (historically first) financing by issuing shares. The VOC was the first listed company in the world; securities trading in Amsterdam began with their shares.
While previous financings were more medium-term bonds and related to individual shiploads, the VOC shareholders had no say, no influence on the investments and remained tied to their investment for ten years. After the initial investment period, investors began to trade their shares on the stock market, so that at the commodity exchange, a stock exchange should come, but claimed the first little spatial area.
In 1668 the building was enlarged at the expense of the towers and given a roof turret. Since the building was built over water, it was susceptible to moisture damage and sagged in some places. The first major repairs had to be made in 1659; City architect Abraham van der Hart carried out extensive surveys in 1781 and 1796, but the problems remained, so that larger-scale work was necessary in 1803 and 1825.
Stock trading had also increased further and there was increased space requirement for administrative space, so that the city of Amsterdam decided in 1836 to demolish the first Amsterdam stock exchange in order to build a new one.
A Greek temple used as a stock exchange building
Although in retrospect the year 1648 represented the economic climax of the era for Amsterdam and the Netherlands that ushered in the decline, Amsterdam traders still dominated certain areas of trade, such as the trade with West Indies or the precious metal or grain trade, even into the 19th century . In 1662, for example, 2,796 ships called at the port of Amsterdam, in 1695 there were 3,861, but in 1747 still 1,747. The need for a new, larger stock exchange was therefore unbroken, but the details of the planned new building were the reason for years of debate in the Amsterdam city council. Jan David Zocher was not commissioned until October 1840 .
He erected the stock exchange building a little further northeast of the previous stock exchange at the corner of Dam and Damrak . On September 10, 1845, the building, modeled on a Greek temple with high columns, “ ingerigt naar de behoefte en Smaak van de tegenwoordigen tijd ” (German: “furnished according to the needs and tastes of today”) by King Wilhelm II. Opened. The Amsterdamers quickly gave the building the nickname mausoleum .
In 1851 the Amsterdamse Vereniging voor de Effectenhandel 'Amsterdam Association for Stock Trading' was founded, which from then on regulated stock trading. Only members of this organization were now eligible to participate in exchange trading.
However, Zocher's building became dilapidated in 1884 and had to be demolished in 1903. A plan developed in 1894 by the architect Adriaan Willem Weissman (1858–1923) to remove the damage and expand it failed, although it remains open whether the structural damage was too great or whether political or financial intentions were the father of the desire for a new building. From 1912 to 1914 a building in neo-renaissance style was built on the property , which today houses the De Bijenkorf department store .
Beurs van Berlage
The Berlage stock exchange is not far from the previous stock exchange building on Damrak on a drained part of the Amstel.
In 1884, Hendrik Petrus Berlage took part in the architectural competition for the construction of the commodity exchange (later called Beurs van Berlage ) in Amsterdam, which he won in 1896.
However, his clients did not initially like the brick building with its high tower, its no-frills facade and the visible construction: They would have preferred a representative building in the neo-renaissance style. But it was precisely from this historicizing architecture, which is represented in Amsterdam with many examples, that Berlage wanted to distinguish himself. He invited artist friends to decorate the building with contemporary ornaments, sayings and works of art. Jan Toorop designed various tile panels, including symbolic images of the past, present and future for the vestibule. Lambertus Zijl made statues of three Amsterdam heroes for the corners of the building : on the corner of the Beursplein this is Gijsbrecht van Aemstel , the founder of the city of Amsterdam, on the right is Jan Pieterszoon Coen , an admiral and land conqueror from the 17th century and on the left is the legal scholar Hugo de Groot . Berlage designed lamps and furniture for the building himself. Wall paintings, sculptures, ornamental grilles, sayings and furnishings complement the massive architecture, which defies a clear stylistic classification, and turn the building into a total work of art, which today is considered to be the dawn of Dutch architecture into the modern age Berlage immediately brought notoriety and respect in the professional world.
On May 27, 1903, Queen Wilhelmina inaugurated the building, which housed four stock exchanges: the commodity, grain, shipper and stock exchange.
The Amsterdam financial center in the 19th and 20th centuries
The Amsterdam Stock Exchange exerted a decisive influence on Europe , particularly through its six-monthly and later two-monthly auctions of Java coffee . Some of the colonial goods were stored in Rotterdam and Middelburg , Dordrecht and Schiedam , but the majority in Amsterdam. The Nederlandse Handelmaatschappij , founded in 1824, created the conditions for the goods to be auctioned .
“In 1882 the company in Amsterdam and Rotterdam paid 40.2 million Fl. Were sold, met 711.454 bales (à 95¼ kg) of coffee from the East Indies in Amsterdam and were next to "sugar and rice, muscats , mace and cloves, and also tin (from Bangka, Billiton and recently Australia) as a major product; Incidentally, petroleum, linseed oil, lumber and grain are traded on a large scale.
One gets an approximate concept of the importance of some of these branches if one considers that the sugar exports from the Dutch East Indies go to the market of A. In 1882 the sugar intake from the colonies was 27 million kg, the export of colonial sugar 14¼ million kg, and refined sugar 63 million kg. In 1882: 991,000 bales of rice were imported; in 1881: 77,250 bales of cotton; of grain and seeds in 1882: 147.826 loads (approx. 2 tons each) were weighed. Only 187,569 barrels of petroleum were imported. The number of incoming ships was in 1882: 1702 with approx. 1,700,000 tons, that of those departing in 1595 with 1,623,000 tons. The merchant fleet of A. counted in 1883: 128 ships of 125,534 tons, including 46 steamers of 77,239 tons going inland the goods on the Amstel and Vecht via Utrecht to the Rhine and the Waal or via Gouda to Rotterdam; Railways go in the same direction and otherwise lead to Haarlem or via Amersfoort to Zütphen and Salzbergen. In addition to the Nederlandsche Handelmaatschappij there is a West Indian trading company in A., various large joint-stock companies for insurance, industrial or mercantile purposes. Among the numerous trading institutions is the Dutch Bank, which (founded in 1824 in place of the well-known giro bank and privileged until 1884) with a capital of 15 million Fl. works as a discount, bill of exchange, lending, deposit and note bank, top of the line "
After the end of the Second World War , the trading volume on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange fell more and more and the Berlage stock exchange building became dilapidated. In 1959 there were voices in the local council to tear it down. In 1960, however, it was decided to renovate it and use it as a concert hall and for exhibitions in the future.
The last stock exchange trading, namely the Agricultural Derivatives Market, moved out of the building in 1998. The imposing hall of the former commodity exchange with its large glass roof, curved iron girders and two galleries has served as an exhibition space and concert hall since 1987.
Today the building, with a small museum about the history of the building, serves as a concert and exhibition building. On February 2, 2002, the civil wedding of the heir to the throne Willem-Alexander with Máxima Zorreguieta took place here.
Beursplein 5
Currency and securities trading had their own spacious hall in the Beurs van Berlage , but securities trading expanded so quickly that just a few years later it was much too small. Also, the members of the Amsterdam Association for Stock Trading had still not got used to the building. The architect had gained international fame for his design - the stock market traders found the “brick shed” cold, drafty, impersonal and unsuitable for their purposes.
In 1914, the stock exchange was given a new, separate building on Börsenplatz (Beursplein 5), where it is still located today.
The building is a work by Jos Cuypers , which is more reminiscent of a "Temple of Mercury", a trading temple, than Berlage's building and in which the stock exchange was housed to everyone's satisfaction for around 80 years.
1990s
In 1994 trading was fully automated, floor trading was completely eliminated, so that the space requirement was significantly reduced. In 1997 the Amsterdam Stock Exchange merged with the futures exchange , and trading in options was still carried out on the floor at the time. The Amsterdam floor was therefore still open until December 2002. Then this branch of the exchange was also automated and processed on the screen.
In 1997 the Amsterdam Stock Exchange was also one of the first to be privatized and converted into a public company.
Merger to form Euronext
The first plans to merge the stock exchanges were officially announced on March 20, 2000. On September 22nd, 2000, the Amsterdam Stock Exchange then merged with the Brussels and Paris stock exchanges to form Euronext NV , the first international securities and derivatives exchange . Today the Amsterdam Stock Exchange unites the AEX-Effectenbeurs , the AEX-Optiebeurs and the AEX-Agrarian Termijnmarkt under one roof . Traders are still sitting on the floor of Beursplein 5 today. Otherwise, the impressive hall can be rented for meetings and events outside of trading hours.
Individual evidence
- ^ Herbert Rosendorfer: German history - an attempt. Volume 4: The Thirty Years War , Munich 2007, p. 41.
- ↑ Rokin is the name of the street that formerly formed the inner harbor ( rak-in ) of Amsterdam. At the beginning of the 20th century the watercourse was partially filled in. The Amstel - derived by canals - ends between Muntplein and de Dam today , where the inner and outer harbor ( Dam-Rak ) as the axis of the city, around which the canal belt later wrapped , have clearly been preserved.
- ^ Under West Indies the Dutch understood the Caribbean and parts of Central and South America .
- ↑ History of Amsterdam, Municipal Archives Amsterdam, some of which can also be researched online at Stadsarchief Amsterdam
- ↑ Amsterdam municipal archive , online searchable under Werk, Loonstaat ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The Damrak is the former outer harbor basin of Amsterdam. It was in front of the dam that separated the inner basin (rokin). The name of the dam has been preserved in the place name "Dam".
- ↑ Hendrik P. Berlage: Thoughts on Style, 1886-1909. Getty Research Institute, 1995, ISBN 978-0-89236-333-9 .
- ↑ slightly abbreviated from Meyer's Konversationslexikon from 1889
literature
- Patrick Brien et al .: Urban Achievement in Early Modern Europe: Golden Ages in Antwerp, Amsterdam and London. Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN 978-0-521-59408-0 .
- The golden age of Dutch art. Belser 2000, ISBN 978-3-7630-2376-9 (exhibition catalog Rijksmuseum Amsterdam on the occasion of its bicentenary in 2000).
- Harald Bodenschatz et al .: An end to the destruction? Urban renewal and urban opposition in Amsterdam, London and West Berlin. Anabas 1983, ISBN 978-3-87038-101-1 .