CBOE Origin Remembrances: Lawrence G. McMillan

By Lawrence G. McMillan

I had been trading over-the-counter options for some time, ever since having read the book “Beat The Market,” by Edward Thorp (yes, the same guy who originally figured out how to properly count cards in blackjack and had also written “Beat The Dealer.”) Sometime in mid-1973, my broker Ron Dilks, called me and said that he had read an article in Business Week about listed stock options. It was about the Chicago Board Option Exchange (CBOE), which had begun trading listed options a few months earlier, in April of 1973.

Later, it became an assumption that I was trading options on day one of listed options at the CBOE. I was, but not CBOE listed options. That began later in 1973. The standardization of options by the CBOE gave one the ability to easily construct option spreads and other more theoretical strategies...

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