Board of Trade

Board of Trade, Organized market for the exchange of commodity contracts (see commodity exchange). The Toronto Board of Trade, one of the earliest, was incorporated in 1845. The first grain-futures exchange in the U.S. was organized in Chicago in 1848. The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) began as a voluntary association of prominent Chicago grain merchants and was chartered by the Illinois legislature in 1859. Initially it sold grain by sample; later it introduced a system of inspection and grading to standardize the market and facilitate trading. By 1858 access to the trading floor was limited to members with seats on the exchange. It became the world’s largest commodity exchange in terms of volume and value of business.