Why does it seem like the Chicago markets are turning into the place to legitimately wager on just about anything from gold prices to snowfall levels? It's because of announcements like this:

The Chicago Board Options Exchange said it hopes during the second quarter to begin carrying futures contracts based on a nationally known index of home prices. So you and your favorite Realtor could conspire to figure out where prices are going before the index is calculated, and speculate accordingly.

The contracts are to be traded on the CBOE Futures Exchange and will be based on the median price data issued by the National Association of Realtors. One contract will cover the national figure, and four others will be set to the indexes for broad regions of the United States. The exchange expects to add 10 more contracts tied to housing markets in major metro areas, including Chicago.

The price of the contracts will be 1/100th of the median value. So if the national index reads $211,000, as it did for January, each contract's settlement price will be $2,110. The trading from there would show where the market thinks the index is headed.

Regulatory approval must come before the contracts can be offered. The CBOE said the national and regional contracts will be settled monthly, while the metropolitan contracts will settle quarterly.

Last year, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange said it would experiment with home-value futures, but the index it chose is relatively obscure.

The potential audience for these contracts is vast. But don't dare tap a home-equity loan to play at this table.

FORTUNE TELLER: If Wall Street analysts are right, and your skepticism of that is understandable, shares of Deerfield-based Fortune Brands (FO) are a real deal. The stock, which ended Friday at $81.95, has been stuck in a fairly tight trading range since last fall. Yet it shows up as having some of the best overall analyst ratings of all companies in the S&P 500.

The people who follow this behemoth of such brand names as Jim Beam bourbon, Thomasville furniture and Titleist golf balls like the pricing power that its market strength allows. They note that the company has spun off lower-margin businesses. Common price targets for the shares are $94 to $100.

TOOL TIME: For another local company earning high marks these days, check out Illinois Tool Works (ITW). The management last week raised its earnings forecast for the first quarter, and the pundits are betting ITW will have momentum through this year. Analyst Robert McCarthy at Robert W. Baird & Co. said moderating oil prices are helping ITW on the expense side. He has a price target of $118 on the stock, which stands at $97.64.

STOP THE PRESSES: Those persnickety folks at Moody's Investors Service said they've put the debt rating of New York Times (NYT) and Tribune (TRB) under review because of rising debt levels and declining profitability. Moody's threatened a "multi-notch" downgrade for NYT. For TRB, the concern was the company's plans to finance a roughly $1 billion tax judgment. The news smacked TRB shares, which fell $1.41 Friday to $29.36, their lowest since 1999.

FUTURES PLAY: Some months back, Chicago traders were betting among themselves about when the exchanges here would shut down their OneChicago venture. But then volume at OneChicago, an electronic exchange for futures on more than 200 stocks, did a sharp turnaround. It was up 188 percent last year, and the 2006 gain through February was more than 400 percent.

There's enough life in this exchange to attract a new investor, Interactive Brokers Group, which is based in Greenwich, Conn., but has a large operation in the Rookery on LaSalle Street. Interactive announced a "significant" investment in OneChicago, which no one would quantify but is believed to be more than the Chicago Board of Trade's roughly 10 percent share. Before the Interactive stake, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board Options Exchange each had about 40 percent.

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