Financial

Chicago is the economic and financial heartbeat of the Midwest and has the third largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—approximately $532 billion according to 2010 estimates,^[82][83] after only the urban agglomerations of New York City and Los Angeles, in the first and second place, respectively. Chicago was named the fourth most important business center in the world in the MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index.^[84]
The Chicago Board of Trade (established 1848) listed the first ever standardized 'exchange traded' forward contracts, which were called futures contracts.^[85] In 1883, the standardized system of North American time zones was adopted by the general time convention of railway managers in Chicago.^[86] This gave the continent its uniform system for telling time.^{[citation needed]}
As a major world financial center, the city is home to the headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (the Seventh District of the Federal Reserve). The city is also home to major financial and futures exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the "Merc"), which is owned, along with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) by Chicago's CME Group. The CME Group, in addition, owns the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), the Commodities Exchange Inc. (COMEX) and the Dow Jones Indexes.^[87]