During the early stages of the development of American agriculture, grain prices were subject to seemingly perpetual cycles of boom and bust, as prices fell when farmers flooded the market with grain at harvest time and then rose later as shortages developed. Buyers and sellers began to contract for future delivery of specific quantities of grain at agreed-upon prices and delivery dates. These “to arrive,” or forward, contracts were themselves bought and sold in anticipation of changes in market prices and became the basis for the standardized futures contracts traded on the Chicago Board of
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