Of all the brokerage firms that have sought to move the Chicago exchanges into the modern age of financial futures, few have had the influence of Rosenthal Collins and its founder, Les Rosenthal. Everyone who trades Treasury futures today owes this man a debt of gratitude, because it was Rosenthal, as chairman of a special committee at the Chicago Board of Trade, who provided the essential political leadership necessary to win the members approval to develop and launch Ginnie Mae futures contract in 1975, the world’s first contract based on interest rates. Rosenthal started his career in futures in 1951 as a runner on the CBOT floor. He founded his own firm in 1970 and during the 1970s he served on the board of both the CBOT and Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In the early 1980s, he was elected to two terms as the chairman of the CBOT and helped establish the National Futures Association. He died on September 16, 2017 at the age of 84.
