Founded in 1973, the CBOE is an exchange that focuses on options contracts for individual equities, indexes and interest rates. The CBOE is the world's largest options market. It captures a majority of the options traded. It is also a market leader in developing new financial products and technological innovation, particularly with electronic trading.

The CBOE is also referred to as the "See-bo".

On the first day of trading in 1973, 911 contracts traded hands on 16 stocks. Today, the CBOE's average daily volume consistently exceeds one million contracts per day.