ABSTRACT

To the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange, originally established in 1887 to provide a market place in western Canadian grains, goes the distinction of opening the world’s first gold futures market in November 1972. Referred to in the Financial Post of 11 November of that year as ‘a unique, highly leveraged, and potentially important market’, the Winnipeg gold market was important between November 1972 and the beginning of 1975 but since the opening of the five US futures markets in gold on that latter date it has declined in importance.