Charles Schwab launches single stock futures for over 50 US stocks

Charles Schwab is now offering single stock futures on more than 50 major US equities, giving traders a way to bet on individual company price moves with leverage, without actually owning the shares. The product rolls out through Schwab’s thinkorswim platforms, piggybacking on CME Group’s July 27 launch of cash-settled single stock futures contracts.

What Schwab is actually offering

The new contracts cover prominent names from the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, and Russell 1000 indices. Tickers include /STSLA for Tesla, /SNVDA for Nvidia, /SMSFT for Microsoft, /SGOOG for Alphabet, and even /SSPCX for SpaceX, a company that isn’t publicly traded in the traditional sense.

Other recognizable names in the lineup include Walmart, Costco, and Pfizer.

CME Group’s underlying offering consists of 55 standard-sized contracts and 22 micro-sized contracts. Standard contracts carry a multiplier of $100 per point, effectively representing 100 shares of the underlying stock. Micro contracts represent 10 shares, making them more accessible for smaller accounts or more precise position sizing.

All contracts are cash-settled, meaning no one is actually delivering or receiving shares when the contract expires. They follow quarterly expirations, a familiar cadence for anyone who’s traded index futures or options.

Trading is available from 6 p.m. ET Sunday through 5 p.m. ET Friday. That extended window is a meaningful advantage over regular stock trading hours, particularly for traders who want to react to earnings releases, economic data, or overseas market moves that land outside the 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. window.

The trading fee is $2.25 per contract per side. You’ll need a futures-approved account to access the product, so this isn’t something that shows up automatically for every Schwab customer.

A second life for a failed experiment

Single stock futures aren’t a new invention. They were first introduced in the US back in 2002, made possible by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. The market yawned. Trading volumes never reached critical mass, and the product faded into obscurity while options markets flourished. The exchange that listed them, OneChicago, eventually shut down in 2020 after years of declining relevance.

How this changes the game for traders

The practical appeal is straightforward. Say you want exposure to 100 shares of a stock trading at $200. Buying the shares outright costs $20,000. A single stock future on the same name requires only the margin deposit, which for futures is typically a fraction of the notional value.

Going short is equally streamlined. Traditional short selling requires borrowing shares, paying borrow fees, and dealing with the risk of a short squeeze if shares become hard to locate. Futures sidestep all of that. You simply sell a contract.

The $2.25 per contract per side fee structure is competitive but not trivial for active traders scaling in and out of positions. On a micro contract representing 10 shares, that fee represents a more significant percentage of the notional value than it does on a standard contract.

The inclusion of SpaceX in the contract lineup is particularly notable. As a private company, SpaceX shares don’t trade on any public exchange, making this futures contract one of the few regulated instruments that offers direct price exposure to Elon Musk’s rocket venture.

CME Group’s decision to launch both standard and micro sizes suggests they’ve learned from the first attempt and are casting a wider net across account sizes.