Investors can now add new leverage to their portfolios with single‑stock futures that trade for almost 24 hours a day. The CME Group has launched cash‑settled contracts on 55 U.S. equities,ारित, along with micro‑sized contracts on 22 of those stocks, giving participants the ability to take both long and short positions around the clock.
The futures trade on CME’s Globex platform from Sunday evening through Friday afternoon, with a brief one‑hour daily maintenance break. This schedule allows traders to react to earnings releases and other market‑moving events that occur outside normal U.S. stock market hours.
The initial lineup features futures tied to SpaceX, Micron Technology, NVIDIA, Tesla, and Apple. Standard contracts represent 100 shares of the underlying stock, while micro contracts represent 10 shares.
“Retail brokers have called the launch the year’s largest catalyst for retail growth, with over 35 retail partners targeting day‑one readiness,” noted Morgan Stanley analyst Michael Cyprys in a recent note.
According to CME, these products offer a simpler way to express bullish or bearish views than options. Unlike options, single‑stock futures avoid time decay and implied volatility shifts, require only a fraction of the capital due to margin trading, and are settled in cash based on the stock’s official closing price at expiration. They provide exposure without conferring ownership of the underlying company.
The exchange indicated it may broaden the offering beyond the initial 55 stocks in response to customer demand and its listing standards.
Exchange‑traded commodities such as CME’s products face increasing pressure as overseas platforms pursue perpetual futures—currently not permitted in the U.S.—to capture market share. Regulatory approvals for cryptocurrency perpetuals by entities like Kalshi and Coinbase hint at a potential future expansion of this product class to equities as well.
