1783 -
James Man established sugar broking business; 1860 -
Edward Desborough Man and Frederick Man (grandsons) ran firm; 1994
- Man Group plc listed on London Stock Exchange; March 2000
- group of directors and senior managers acquired agricultural
businesses in a management buy-out; company operated successfully as
employee-owned company.
April 3, 1848
- 83 merchants founded Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) at 101 South Water
Street; Thomas Dyer elected the first president; 1856 -
122 new members admitted; 1859 - received charter from
State of Illinois; 1865 - formalized grain trading by
developing standardized agreements called "futures contracts";
1868 - Board of Directors stated any members engaging in
transaction to corner market would be expelled from trading; 1877
- futures trading became more formalized, "speculators" entered picture;
1878 - trading pit patented;
September 24, 1869
- "Black Friday":
financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk tried to inflate and corner the gold
market (spread a rumor that President Grant was about to stop the sale
of government gold); sent Wall Street into a panic, left thousands of
investors in financial ruin; Grant eventually saw through the scheme,
put $4 million worth of gold on the market; price of gold in specie fell
to $133 from $163.50; swindle blemished Grant's record, Gould dumped his
holdings before the price drop, Fisk took hefty loss.
May 21, 1878
- Reuben S. Jennings, of Chicago, Il, received a patent for an
"Improvement in Trading-Pits" ("to be used by stock, provision, and
grain boards, or boards of trade or exchange, or other associations of a
like nature, as a convenient stand while trading...in the form or
approximating a circle or octagon, or of other convenient shape or form,
facing each other...and is, for convenience, made in sections, so as to
be easily removed, and it is ventilated or warmed through apertures").
1922 - Federal government
established Grain Futures Administration to regulate grain trading;
1923 - U.S. Supreme Court upheld Capper-Tincher Act (Grain
Futures Act) to eliminate price manipulation, other trade abuses;
1925 - Chicago Board of Trade Directors given authority to
declare emergency situation, establish daily
price limits; 26.9 billion bushels of grain traded; 1926 -
Board of Trade Clearing Corporation founded to guarantee trades made on
CBOT; 1929 - CBOT seat sold for $62,500, record at the
time; 1936 - launched Soybean futures contracts;
1956 - introduced industry's first examination for commodity
brokers; 1968 - iced broilers, first non-grain related
commodity, began trading; 1969 - began trade in Silver
futures contract, first non-grain product; 1973 - started
Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), world's first stock options
exchange; government established Commodity Futures Trading Commission to
regulate futures industry; 1975 - launches first interest
rate futures contract, Government National Mortgage Association futures;
1977 - launched U.S. Treasury Bond futures contract;
became most actively traded contract in world; January 7-8, 1980
- closed by CFTC order; suspended trading after President Carter placed
embargo on grain shipments to Soviet Union; October 1, 1982
- launched first options on futures contract, for U.S. Treasury Bond
futures; 1986 - trade volume topped 100 million contracts
for first time, set world record; February 18, 1997 -
opened world's largest trading floor, 60,000 sq. ft. for financial
futures, futures-options; April 14, 2005 - 99 percent of
votes cast in favor of CBOT’s restructuring proposal, includes
demutualization of Exchange into for-profit, stock-based holding
company, for-profit, membership exchange subsidiary; 2006
- highest yearly total volume recorded in history, more than 674 million
contracts traded in 2005; January 2, 2007 - set new record
for annual trading volume, with 805,884,413 contracts; July
9, 2007 - Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc., Chicago
Board of Trade Holdings, Inc. completed merger, created world's largest,
most diverse exchange.
May 2, 1968
- Gold reaches then record high ($39.35 per ounce) in London.
August 18, 1970
- Chicago Board of Trade posted the single biggest day of trading in its
122-year history when a record 309 million bushels of grain changed
hands; bested the previous record by 13 percent.
August 2, 1972
- Gold hits record $70 an ounce in London.
February 10, 1974
- Silver futures hit record $4.81 an ounce in London.
April 3, 1974
- Gold hits record $197 an ounce in Paris.
December 31, 1974
- Private U.S. citizens were allowed to buy and own gold for the first
time in more than 40 years.
July 28, 1978
- Price of gold tops $200-an-oz level for first time.
January 14, 1980
- Gold (released from government control) trades at record price,
exceeds $800 an ounce; 1821 - units of English currency
were redeemable for a fixed quantity of gold, a change that Britain
hoped would stabilize its rapidly growing economy; late 19th century -
most industrialized nations were on the full gold standard (facilitated
international monetary transactions and stabilized foreign exchange
rates); 1914 - curbing of gold exports at the outbreak of
World War I forced recourse to inconvertible paper currency;
1920's- economic growth overtook gold reserves, some nations
supplemented their reserves with stable currencies like the pound and
dollar, which like gold had obtained a measure of permanent abstract
value in people's minds; 1930 - world economy and gold
standard collapsed (in response, most governments sharply limited the
convertibility of paper currency); 1933 - President
Franklin D. Roosevelt prohibited the circulation of gold coins (though
gold was still used in defining the value of the dollar);
1930's-1960's - currencies remained "pegged" to gold until
global reserves dwindled; 1971 - the United States
suspended the free exchange of U.S. gold for foreign-held dollars;
1974 - lifted its four-decade ban on the private purchase of
gold (gold bullion trading in European markets at highs approaching $200
an ounce); 1975 - U.S. government began to sell some of
its holdings on the open market ; 1978 - officially
abandoned the gold standard.
April 1980
- Crude-oil closed at an inflation-adjusted record price of $101.70 per
barrel.
November 2, 1985
- Hunt brothers quietly sell off "substantially all" of their $350
million silver holdings (59 million ounces of silver) acquired in an
attempt to corner the silver market (had languished in the $6-an-ounce
range), lost roughly $1 billion on the sale.
November 23, 1987 - In the
aftermath of the "crash of '87" The Chicago Board of Trade implemented a
daily price ceiling on the Major Market Index future and the
Institutional Index future; the 20 stocks on the Major and Institutional
indices were restricted to moves of no more than 40 and 25 points,
respectively.
September 16, 1992
- George Soros, head of Quantum Fund, made 'global macro' $10 billion
bear-raid bet against British pound; speculated (correctly) that Bank of
England would not support pound participation in European Exchange Rate
Mechanism (ERM) indefinitely (pound pegged to set limits, linked to
German mark since, around 3DM to pound, October 1990) by jacking up
interest rates in economy in recession (UK adopted anti-inflation
policies of German Bundesbank); Bank of England let British currency
devalue (dropped below 2.20 DM to pound in spring 1995); Prime Minister
John Major's government suffered blow of 'Black Wednesday'; Soros made
$1 billion overnight, 'broke' Bank of England; severe blow to
Conservatives' reputation for sound economic management; aftermath -
inflation, interest rates, unemployment fell immediately; Britain began
longest period of continuous growth in its history (pound recovered
to 3.20 DM to pound).
March 29, 1996
- New York Mercantile Exchange began trading on a new commodities market
for power supplies; first power contract - to be delivered that summer
at California-Oregon border; more than 1,000 contracts first day.
January 23, 2005 - Raw sugar for
March delivery rose to 18.75 cents/pound on the New York Board of Trade,
highest price in 24 years (June 2, 1981 = 18.85 cents/lb.).
March 17, 2008
- CME Group (result Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s $11 billion takeover
of Chicago Board of Trade in 2007) finalized deal to buy Nymex for $9.4
billion; controls about 98% of US-listed futures, offers contracts on
wide range of underlying commodities, events (interest rates, foreign
exchange, stock indices, oil, metals, agricultural products).
March 20, 2008 -
March 26,
2008 - Rice prices jumped 30% to all-time high (doubled since
January); global rice stocks are at lowest since 1976 (foreign sales
restrictions have removed about third of rice traded in international
market): 1) Egypt, leading
exporter, imposed a formal ban on selling rice abroad to keep local
prices down, 2) Philippines
(world’s largest buyer of the grain) announced plans for a major
purchase of the grain in the international market to boost supplies,
3) Indian government imposed
further restrictions on the exports of rice to combat rising local
inflation); 4) Indonesia stopped
its farmers from selling rice abroad ( joined Vietnam, Egypt, China,
Cambodia, India in banning foreign sales);
5) Australian rice production
collapsed due to draught - down 98% since 2003
(source:
Australia wine and rice producers; New South Wales Rice Marketing Board;
Australian Wine and Brandy Board)
May 2008 - Decline in research
which created higher crop yields; demand for rice exceeds production.
(source: Organization for Economical
Cooperation and Development; International Rice Research Institute; U.S.
Department of Agriculture; Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations, Via The World Bank)
(CBOT), Jonathan Lurie (1979).
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Oral history of some of most influential members
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Ralph M. Ainsworth with a new introduction by Edward D. Dobson
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Stocks; Investments. How to develop the focus,
attitude, and mental discipline of top traders.
Jacob Bernstein (1994).
Market Masters: How Successful Traders
Think, Trade and Invest and How You Can Too! (Chicago, IL: Dearborn
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market--United States; Stock exchanges--United States.
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Philippe Chalmin, translated from the French by Erica E. Long-Michalke.
(1987).
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trade; Commodity exchanges.
Edward Jerome Dies (1975).
The Plunger, A Tale of the Wheat Pit.
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Stephen Fay (1982).
Beyond Greed: How the Two Richest Families
in the World, the Hunts of Texas and the House of Saud, Tries to
Corner the Silver Market - and How They Failed, Who Stopped Them and
Why It Could Happen Again. (New York, NY: Viking, 304 p.).
Reporter (London Times). Hunt family; Silver.
David Greising and Laurie Morse (1991).
Brokers, Bagmen and Moles:
Fraud and Corruption in the Chicago Futures Markets. (New York, NY:
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Jeffrey Owen Katz and Donna L. McCormick (2000).
The Encyclopedia
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Perry J. Kaufman (2005).
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Leg the Spread: A Woman's Adventures Inside the
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Women in the professions--United States; Brokers--United States;
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Victor Niederhoffer (1997).
The Education of a Speculator.
(New York, NY: Wiley, 444 p.). Private Speculator Specializing in
Futures and Options Trading. Commodity futures--United States;
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exchanges--United States.
Jim Paul and Brendan Moynihan (1994).
What I Learned Losing a
Million Dollars. (Nashville, TN: Infrared Press, 190 p.). First Vice
President in charge of the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co.
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exchanges; Speculation; Speculation--Psychological aspects.
Jim Rogers (2004).
Hot Commodities: How Anyone Can Invest
Profitably in the World's Best Market. (New York, NY: Random House,
250 p.). Cofounder (Quantum Fund); Adjunct Professor of Finance
(Columbia University). Commodity exchanges; Futures market.
Paul Sarnoff (1980).
The Silver Bulls. (Westport, CT:
Arlington House, 199 p.). Silver.
Jerome Tuccille (1984).
Kingdom: The Story of the Hunt family of Texas. (Ottawa, IL:
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Biography; Capitalists and financiers -- United States -- Biography.
Ray Vicker (1975).
The Realms of Gold. (New York, NY:
Scribner, 244 p.). Gold--History.
Abram Wakeman (1914).
History and Reminiscences of Lower Wall
Street and Vicinity. (New York, NY: Spice Mill, 216 p.). Coffee
trade--New York (State)--New York; New York (N.Y.)--Streets--Wall
Street.
