CBOT Soymeal (Chicago, US)

The CBOT (Chicago Board of Trade) is one of the oldest financial and commodity futures exchanges based in Chicago. In 2007, the CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) and the CBOT were merged to form the joint CME Group Inc. The CBOT offers both electronic trading and open outcry trading on the trading floor. An overview of agricultural commodity futures can be found here.

Futures are available on a whole range of different underlying assets such as soybeans(soybean meal, soybean oil). It is important to note that all futures are traded on futures exchanges. The exchange determines exactly what a futures contract looks like.

It should also be noted that virtually all futures contracts are not physically delivered, but are generally settled by trading the offsetting position before the contract expires. Most traders only use futures to hedge the prices they pay or receive on the local market at world market prices and are not interested in physical delivery at the location specified by the exchange.

The soybean, often referred to simply as soy, is a plant species within the legume family (Leguminosae or Fabaceae).

The cultivation of soybeans as a food crop has been documented since 3050 BC in Japan and at least since 1550 BC in Korea and China. Today, soybeans are grown on 6% of the world's agricultural land and are the world's most important oilseed. Its increasing importance is reflected in the highest increase in acreage of all crops since the 1970s. While 17 million tons were produced in 1960, this figure had already risen to 334.9 million tons by 2016.

As an oilseed, soybeans contain around 20% oil. The soybean oil is mainly used as food, but also for the production of biodiesel, for example. After the oil has been pressed, the remaining extraction meal (soybean cake) is heated to destroy the components that are toxic and unpalatable to animals and humans (trypsin inhibitors and haemagglutinins) and then 98% is fed to animals and 2% is used as food for humans. Soybeans contain about 37% protein. As food, the protein quality of soy protein is comparable to that of animal protein, which sets soybeans apart from other plants.