Investment Banking Sales Brokers

The Philadelphia Stock Exchange (now known as NASDAQ PHLX) is the oldest stock exchange in the United States. It was founded in 1790. The best-known exchange in the United States—the New York Stock Exchange—was founded in 1792. The first investment bank in the United States was founded by financier Jay Cooke in 1861. Jay Cooke & Company, which was located in Philadelphia, provided loans and sold bonds to help finance the Union war effort, and, later, became a federal agent in the government financing of railroad construction. Ever since that time, sales brokers have helped banks sell securities on the secondary market. Transactions that are made on the secondary market occur between investors, and any profits from their sale go to the selling investor, not to the company that issued the stock or to the underwriting bank. Investment banks earn commissions and fees from executing and clearing client transactions on major stock, futures, and options exchanges worldwide, as well as over-the-counter transactions.

The investment banking industry has gone through a period of transition since the 2008 recession. “The new regulations that followed the financial crisis [of 2007–08] have changed the industry in a number of ways, making it difficult to profit from many traditional lines of business by creating onerous capital, funding, and liquidity requirements and increased costs and operational complexity,” according to Turning Around Investment Banking: An Agenda for Reviving Profitable and Sustainable Growth, a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. In response, many banks began moving away from trading activities and focusing on more profitable areas of business. The global economy and trade experienced another slowdown in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic but has since gained strength. According to the Brookings Institute, the U.S. is "significantly outperforming its peers in investment and GDP [gross domestic product] per capita ... [and] this recovery has been possible even as inflation has fallen back substantially, as the impact from supply chain disruptions at the height of COVID-19 has faded."