who signs the documents on behalf of the joint stock company
Joint-stock company The existence of a corporation requires a special legal framework and body of law that specifically grants the corporation legal personality, and it typically views a corporation as a fictional person, a legal person, or a moral person (as opposed to a natural person) which shields its owners (shareholders) from "corporate" losses or liabilities; losses are limited to the number of shares owned. It furthermore creates an inducement to new investors (marketable stocks and future stock issuance). Corporate statutes typically empower corporations to own property, sign binding contracts, and pay taxes in a capacity separate from that of its shareholders, who are sometimes referred to as "members". The corporation is also empowered to borrow money, both conventionally and directly to the public, by issuing interest-bearing bonds. Corporations subsist indefinitely; "death" comes only by absorption (takeover) or bankruptcy. According to Lord Chancellor Haldane,
New York Stock Exchange The earliest recorded organization of securities trading in New York among brokers directly dealing with each other can be traced to the Buttonwood Agreement. Previously securities exchange had been intermediated by the auctioneers who also conducted more mundane auctions of commodities such as wheat and tobacco.[13] On May 17, 1792 twenty four brokers signed the Buttonwood Agreement which set a floor commission rate charged to clients and bound the signers to give preference to the other signers in securities sales. The earliest securities traded were mostly governmental securities such as War Bonds from the Revolutionary War and First Bank of the United States stock,[13] although Bank of New York stock was a non-governmental security traded in the early days.[14] The Bank of North America along with the First Bank of the United States and the Bank of New York were the first shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange.[15]