Chicago Butter and Egg Board

The Chicago Butter and Egg Board, founded in 1898, was a spin-off entity of the Chicago Produce Exchange. In the year 1919, it was re-organized as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). Roots of the Chicago Butter and Egg Board are traceable to the 19th century.^[1]

Initially, the Chicago Butter and Egg Board traded only two types of contracts, butter and eggs. Over several decades, it evolved into the CME which traded futures contracts and options contracts on over 50 products, from pork bellies to eurodollars and stock market indices.

The butter and egg markets died out in the 1960s after the production of both commodities had become much less seasonal, which reduced both the price volatility and the need for inter-temporal signals for guiding the disposal of inventories.^[2]