History of Value Line Futures and Options

The opening of Value Line stock index futures trading at the Kansas City Board of Trade on February 24, 1982, marked the beginning of a new era in risk management for the financial marketplace. Until that day, owners of the trillions of dollars in publicly traded stock in the U.S. had limited ways to protect themselves from adverse market moves that could rapidly erode the value of their investments. The Value Line stock index contract for the first time extended to stockholders the same price protection principles used by agricultural interests for more than a century. The Value Line contract also was the first to bring together the investment opportunities of the stock market and the leverage of the futures market.

In 1983, the KCBT introduced a Mini Value Line futures contract and in mid-1992, options on the Mini futures contract, making the benefits of stock index futures and options available to the broader marketplace.

The Value Line Arithmetic Index, upon which Value Line futures were based, is the broadest-based of the major stock indexes with futures contracts, containing blue-chip, mid-size and small-cap stocks from a wide variety of industries. The Value Line Index is weighted equally, unlike the S&P 500, which is capitalization weighted (price times shares outstanding), or the Dow, which is price weighted.

Value Line futures and options were delisted by the exchange on October 4, 2010. However, the KCBT continues to calculate and disseminate the Value Line Index.

Value Line® is a registered mark of Value Line, Inc., a New York corporation that provides financial services and publications. Since 1982, the Kansas City Board of Trade has been licensed to use the Value Line® mark in connection with its efforts to establish futures markets tied to the Value Line® index. The Kansas City Board of Trade and Value Line, Inc. are not affiliated corporate entities.