The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) was established in 1848 to bring farmers and merchants together. Initially, its main task was to standardize the quantities and qualities of the grains that were traded. Within a few years, the first futures-type contract was developed.
It was known as a ‘to-arrive’ contract. Speculators soon became interested in the contract and found trading the contract to be an attractive alternative to trading the grain itself.
The Chicago Board of Trade now offers futures contracts on many different underlying assets, including corn, oats, soybeans, soybean meal, soybean oil, wheat, silver, treasury bonds, treasury notes, and the Major Market Stock Index.
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 July 12, 2007, the CBOT merged with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to form the CME Group. CBOT and three other exchanges (CME, NYMEX, and COMEX) now operate as designated contract markets (DCM) of the CME Group