TradeStation retail customers now have access to a suite of CME futures contracts on individual U.S. stocks. The available instruments include both standard-sized and micro-sized contracts across more than 50 leading U.S. stocks.
The firm joined a growing list of brokers, including Schwab, NinjaTrader, EdgeClear, Optimus Futures and Plus500, who have already unlocked access to the single-stock futures launched by CME on July 27.
Futures Exposure without Owning the Shares
Single-stock futures (SSFs) are another way to capitalise on individual U.S. stock price fluctuations. Traders can take long or short positions in CME-cleared futures contracts without owning or borrowing the underlying assets.
Initially, TradeStation offers 55 standard and 22 micro SSFs across more than 50 US stocks, including names from the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100 and Russell 1000 universe, such as Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOGL), Meta (META), Nvidia (NVDA), Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX (SPCX).
Standard-sized contracts refer to 100 shares of a single company, while micro-sized contracts have a 10-share multiplier, lowering the barrier to entry for retail investors and giving traders greater flexibility in managing their exposure.
"SSFs give active traders one more way to trade the names they're already watching," said John Bartleman, President and CEO of TradeStation Group, Inc.
The new contracts are available early 24 hours a day, Sunday through Friday. According to Bartleman, "paired with a margin-based, nearly around-the-clock structure, these new contracts provide another way for traders to explore new strategies."
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TradeStation Joins Broker Rollout
TradeStation’s addition of single-stock futures puts the broker alongside other retail and futures platforms that have enabled access to CME’s new product suite since its July launch.
For clients, the practical change is narrower than a new asset class and broader than another equity product. The contracts give active traders futures-style access to individual names, with margin-based long and short exposure, financial settlement and extended trading hours.
The remaining commercial question is execution cost. TradeStation has not disclosed a dedicated commission structure for the new contracts, and futures trading fees normally depend on traded volume, exchange fees and regulatory charges.
The launch therefore expands the set of equity-linked instruments available to TradeStation customers, while leaving pricing and execution quality as the points clients will compare with other brokers already offering CME’s single-stock futures.
