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Chicago Board of Trade

Chicago Board of Trade
Subsidiary
Industry Business Services
Founded 1848
Headquarters Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Products Options/Futures exchange
Owner CME Group
Website www.cmegroup.com

Coordinates: 41°52′40″N 87°37′56″W / 41.877821°N 87.632285°W / 41.877821; -87.632285

The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), established in 1848, is one of the world's oldest futures and options exchanges. More than 50 different options and futures contracts are traded by over 3,600 CBOT members through open outcry and electronic trading. Volumes at the exchange in 2003 were a record breaking 454 million contracts. On 12 July 2007, the CBOT merged with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to form the CME Group, a CME/Chicago Board of Trade Company. CBOT and three other exchanges (CME, NYMEX, and COMEX) now operate as designated contract markets (DCM) of the CME Group.

The concerns of U.S. merchants to ensure that there were buyers and sellers for commodities have resulted in forward contracts to sell and buy commodities. Still, credit risk remained a serious problem. The CBOT took shape to provide a centralized location, where buyers and sellers can meet to negotiate and formalize forward contracts.

In 1864, the CBOT listed the first ever standardized "exchange traded" forward contracts, which were called futures contracts. In 1919, the Chicago Butter and Egg Board, a spin-off of the CBOT, was reorganized to enable member traders to allow future trading, and its name was changed to Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).


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