USA 250: ‘Westward Look the Land is (Still Mostly) Bright’

America doesn’t do history, or at least its curated mythology is built on the concept of a young republic founded on puritan principles that include hard work and the restlessness of forward only progress. 1776 of course did not create America, however, it was just a handful of years following the end of the Revolutionary Wars that the Buttonwood Agreement of 1792 created what was to become the New York Stock Exchange; it set down a marker of intent that an independent America would embrace a dynamic capitalist future, one that looked appreciably different from its British counterpart of stolid vested interests.

America still thinks of itself as a young country, but at 250 it is entering middle-age and subject to the doubts and insecurities of any maturing entity. Nevertheless, the economic history of America is one of almost constant re-invention and transformation, from an agrarian crop-based plantation owning class, to an industrial and technological power-house. In thinking about how this was achieved one remains in awe of the breadth and depth of skill employed by the Founding Fathers (Jefferson constitutionally, Washington democratically and Hamilton fiscally and economically) in creating the stable platforms from which America could and would flourish.

The early republic, still somewhat clinging to its colonial past, embraced fishing, cattle raising and crops as the principle means of production; the establishment of fiscal and market institutions, the first national bank and currency drove innovation and the foundations for private capital markets. Following the earlier industrialisation of Great Britain, the United States harnessing immigration and the factory system saw manufacturing flourish between 1820 and 1860, setting in motion its eventual and inevitable economic supremacy over Britain.

The Civil War, (1861-65) from which arguably the country has never fully recovered, saw a dramatic challenge to the older model of plantation slavery and cash crops against the North’s mobilisation of manufacturing and industrial fire power. It coincided with the first ‘greenbacks’ (national currency) and National Banking Acts that institutionalized the system of nationally chartered banks. It is in the post-war period particularly which sees the emergence of some of America’s totemic corporate giants and a harsher, rawer approach to capitalism. What has been called the ‘Gilded Age’ (1870-1900) saw the United States overtake the former European industrial behemoths to become the pre-eminent mercantile and industrial state in what has often been called the ‘second industrial revolution’.

Although direct comparisons are tricky given the evolution of corporations over time¹, it is salutary to consider how the US stock exchange has evolved, and particularly at key ‘commemorative markers’ such as 1826, 1876, 1926 and 1976, versus today. For instance, in 1792, Bank of New York was the first traded stock on the NYSE, a company still among the largest traded today (as BNYM²). Other long standing traded companies that can trace very early roots include the Manhattan Company of 1799 (now JPMorgan Chase), E.I Du Pont de Nemours 1802 (now E.I DuPont de Nemours) and Colgate 1806 (now Colgate-Palmolive). The NYSE more than any other exchange reflects the prevailing trends and strengths of the American economy. In 1876 at the first centenary of the Declaration of Independence when the extraordinary General Ulysses S Grant was 18th President, the top five largest stocks traded were all railroad companies reflecting the explosive boom in rail freight and a progressive expansion westward. These five – the Pennsylvania Railroad; New York Central & Hudson River Railroad; Baltimore & Ohio Railroad; Union Pacific Railroad and Erie Railroad³ – reflected an investment frenzy never to be repeated. By 1926, the 150^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (and when the slightly less extraordinary Calvin Coolidge was 30^th President), the five most valuable traded companies on the NYSE had shifted dramatically to communication technology and oil, with only one railroad corporation remaining in Union Pacific⁴. (US Steel Corporation; AT&T, General Electric and Standard Oil). Coolidge presided over the catastrophic crash of 1929, but the 1920s saw corporate America at perhaps its greatest in terms of figures such as Ford, Edison and Rockefeller creating and bequeathing businesses that became global and enduring giants.

By the time of the bi-centenary of the Declaration of Independence in 1976 (when an unexpected Gerald Ford was 38^th President having taken over from the disgraced Richard Nixon), the NYSE had been joined by an upstart exchange NASDAQ, which complicates direct comparisons with earlier times. However, in 1976 the five most valuable stocks traded on the NYSE bore a canny resemblance to 50 years before – IBM, Exxon, AT&T, General Motors and Mobil Oil. The NASDAQ set up in 1971 as an ‘over the counter’ exchange saw the likes of Intel, Tandy Corporation, National Semi-conductors, MCI Communications and American Express (before it moved to the NYSE) as the largest traded stocks before it became so strongly identified with the technology boom of the 1970s-present.

The past 50 years has possibly witnessed even more transformative change than between 1926 and 1976. If America’s rise in the middle years of the 19^th century was as a manufacturing and industrial titan, today middle-aged angst sees the USA import over $3 trillion of manufactured goods with just 8% of US employment dedicated to manufacturing⁵ – Ford and General Motors are now shadows of their former glory, having been overtaken by cheaper Chinese imports. Investment in capacity has fallen 16% since the start of President Trump’s second term. The United States is no longer a manufacturer to the world; the five largest traded stocks on the NYSE today reflect a trend towards financial services and investment companies with just Exxon Mobil Corporation retaining its spot at #5⁶. The NASDAQ, the nippy chancer from 1971 now has the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon and Alphabet as its top five, witness to the advent of the world’s first multi-trillion-dollar group of corporations that power the globe’s access to online services and the information economy. In a sobering changing of the guard, Apple’s market cap alone is worth more than all of the top five stocks by market cap listed on the NYSE.⁷

The United States bears the scars of civil war, multiple economic crashes (the ‘great panic’ of 1873, now forgotten, was almost as catastrophic in scale as 1929 and lasted four years), war and shifting industrial sands to emerge in 2026 as a still mighty economic superpower, but strangely skewered away from factory-based dominance in favour of production offshoring. Its future now seems almost wholly tied to technology, AI and its associated support services, together with its pre-eminence in global finance, and to be sure, its mid-west engineering excellence with the likes of Caterpillar and John Deere. In its two and a half centuries the United States has seen little like the frenzy surrounding the Space X IPO valued at $1.78 trillion – the largest in history. There is nothing normal about Space X with its prospectus talking about making life multi-planetary and ambitions that include asteroid mining, energy production on Mars, solar-powered data centres in space, and lunar based launch systems. Space X may be a highly speculative investment and despite celestial aspirations remains viable only owing to its Starlink satellite technology. Elon Musk perhaps combines the star-gazing ambition of the young republic, with the can-do spirit of Edison, Ford, Carnegie and Rockefeller.

The country has come a very long way since 1776; perhaps even if the US is no longer quite as optimistic as it once was, there is still much to admire – still more or less ‘westward look, the land is bright, or as Buzz Lightyear so memorably said, still the land of ‘infinity and beyond’.

Notes

¹ Direct comparisons are difficult given the concept of market capital values was not understood in earlier times.

² Bank of New York is generally upheld as the oldest stock on the NYSE and one of the longest continuing, although now in its form as BNYM

³ Four of these railroad companies went bust with their interests merged into other railroad companies. Only Union Pacific prevails and is still listed on the NYSE

⁴ The five largest traded companies by market cap on 4 July 1926

⁵ Financial Times ‘Why is it so hard to revive US manufacturing’ 11 June 2026

⁶ The five largest traded stocks by market cap today are Eli Lilly & Co; Walmart Inc; JPMorgan Chase; Berkshire Hathaway Inc and Exxon Mobil Corporation

⁷ Apple has a current market cap of around $4.3 trillion, versus $3.9 trillion for the five companies in aggregate in Note 6 above