The first standard futures contracts were traded regularly at the end of 17 th century in Dojima exchange in Japan. In 1848 the cereal traders have founded the Chicago Board of Trade which will be lead to the futures markets. The objective of the foundation of this exchange was to eliminate the negative influence created by the volatility in the supply and demand quantities and to provide that the quality of the goods will be in certain level. The first regulation was formed in May 1865. The Chicago Produce Exchange in which the eggs and the other agricultural commodities were traded was founded in 1874. The date of foundation of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) which will issue the financial futures instruments afterward , is 1919.

The foreign currencies futures contracts which were the first financial futures contracts were issued in CME in 1972. In 1975 the Chicago Board of Trade issued the futures contracts about Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA) paper. These were followed by the T-Bill futures contracts (1977) and Eurodollar futures contracts (1981 CME).

In 1982 the stock indices have begun to be used in the futures markets :The Chicago Mercantile Exchange has issued the S&P 500 futures contracts . The Value Line index futures contracts have began to be used in Kansas City Board Of Trade and the NYSE index futures contracts in New York Stock Exchange. The first futures contracts in Europe were The Financial Times Stock Exchange (FT-SE 100) futures contracts which were traded in London International Futures Exchange in 1984.

The numbers of the stock index futures contracts traded in 1984 and in 1995 were 39,4 million and 176,5 million consecutively. The ratio of stock index futures contracts to financial futures contracts was 13,6%.