Martinghoul
Registered: Jan 2009
Posts: 5641 |
09-30-12 10:09 PM
An excerpt:
"In 1975 the Chicago Board of Trade created the first interest rate futures contract, one based on Ginnie Mae (GNMA) mortgages. While the contract met with initial success, it eventually died. The CBOT resuscitated it several times, changing its structure, but it never became viable. In 1975 the Merc responded with the Treasury bill futures contract. This contract was the first successful pure interest rate futures. It was held up as an example, either good or bad depending on your perspective, of the enormous leverage in futures. For only about $1,000, and now less than that, you controlled $1 million of T -bills. In 1977, the CBOT created the T -bond futures contract, which went on to be the highest volume contract. In 1982 the CME created the Eurodollar contract, which has now surpassed the T -bond contract to become the most actively traded of all futures contracts."
http://husky1.stmarys.ca/~gye/derivativeshistory.pdf
|