Futures Exchanges – Knowing Where To do Business

Good for you! You’ve been reading, you’ve put together a trading rules to lay the foundation for your futures trading plan and you’ve even been paper trading to prove your trading plan. Now you are ready to learn more about where you will be doing your business; it’s time to talk about the futures exchanges.

General Futures Exchange Information

As you know at this point, you will not actually do business with the futures exchanges listed below. You will work with your broker who will take your futures orders to the exchange floor for you. Since you have been paper trading, you probably have already established an account for commodities trading so we won’t go over that again. While there are futures exchanges throughout the world, we will focus on the ones in the US. The markets we will outline are in Minneapolis, Kansas City, New York and Chicago.

History of Futures Exchanges in the US

The modern futures trading began in Chicago, IL in the early 1800s. Chicago, with its location at the base of the Great Lakes, is close to the farm of the U.S. Midwest which made it a natural center for transportation, distribution and trading of agricultural produce. Gluts and shortages of these products caused extreme changes in price. An exchange was needed that would bring together a market to find potential buyers and sellers of a commodity instead of making people bear the burden of finding a buyer or seller. In 1848, the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), the world’s first futures market, or futures exchange, was formed. Trading was originally in futures and the first contract was written on March 13, 1851.

Futures Exchanges

Different futures exchanges trade different commodities. In addition, each future exchange accepts different futures orders. Since not every exchange allows every order it is necessary to talk with you broker about which orders are permitted in the markets you trade. The following is a list of the major commodity exchanges, their commodities, and the orders that they accept:

Chicago Board of Trade
Location: Chicago, IL
Commodities

• Corn
• Oats
• Soybeans
• Soybean Oil
• Soybean Meal
• T-Bonds
• T-Notes
• Muni Bonds
• 5 Year Notes
• 2 Year Notes
• DJIA Index

Acceptable orders: Market, Market on Close, Limit, Stop, and Fill or Kill Orders

Chicago Mercantile Exchange
Location: Chicago, IL
Commodities

• Live Cattle
• Lean Hogs
• Lumber
• Feeder Cattle
• Pork Bellies

Acceptable orders: All futures orders are acceptable.

Index and Option Market
Commodities

• S&P 500
• Mid-cap 400
• NASDAQ 100

Acceptable orders: All futures orders are acceptable.

International Monetary Exchange
Location: Chicago, IL
Commodities

• T-Bills
• Euro Dollars
• Canadian Dollar
• Euro Currency
• Australian Dollar
• Mexican Peso
• Euro Yen
• Japanese Yen
• British Pound
• Swiss Franc

Acceptable orders: All futures orders are acceptable.

New York Comex
Location: New York, NY
Commodities

Acceptable orders: For Copper only, acceptable are Market, Market on Close, Limit, Stop, and Fill or Kill.
Commodities

• Minneapolis Wheat
• Minneapolis White Wheat

Acceptable orders: All futures orders are acceptable.