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Investors looking to bet on stocks such as space x and micron technology Now, a new tool has emerged: single stock futures, which trade almost 24 hours a day.
CME Group on Monday launched cash-settled individual stock futures trading on 55 U.S. stocks and microcap trading on 22 stocks, marking the exchange’s entry into a market designed to allow investors to take leveraged long or short positions around the clock.
These contracts will trade on CME’s Globex platform from Sunday evening until Friday afternoon, with a daily one-hour maintenance break to allow investors to react to earnings and other market-moving events outside of normal U.S. stock market hours.
The lineup includes futures related to SpaceX, one of Wall Street’s hottest recent initial public offerings, as well as Micron Technology. Nvidia, tesla and apple. A standard contract represents 100 shares of the underlying stock, while a micro contract represents 10 shares.
“Retail brokers are positioning this launch as the biggest retail growth catalyst of the year, with more than 35 retail partners aiming to be ready weekly from day one,” Morgan Stanley analyst Michael Cypris said in a note.
CME said these instruments are designed to provide an easier way to express bullish or bearish opinions than options. Unlike options, single stock futures do not involve time decay or changes in implied volatility, but because they are traded on margin, only a fraction of the required capital is required. The contract will be cash settled and final settlement will be based on the official closing price of the shares at expiration. They do not represent ownership of any company.
The exchange said it may expand its lineup beyond the initial 55 stocks based on customer demand and listing criteria.
Exchange stocks such as CME have been under pressure this year as perpetual futures emerging on foreign exchanges are seen as a growing threat to traditional trading businesses, even though most are currently not legal in the United States.
CME, year-to-date
Earlier this year, Kalsi and Coinbase were given the green light by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to offer crypto-related “purps,” which are futures contracts with no expiration date. The regulatory move was seen as an indication that approval for this type of equity product would become more widespread. Ahead of SpaceX’s IPO, foreign stock players are paying close attention, with international platforms like HyperLiquid offering perpetual futures on Elon Musk’s space company ahead of its official debut.
