Single Stock Futures Explained

A single stock future (SSF) is a standardized contract to buy or sell the value of a single company’s shares at a set price on a future date. Unlike owning the stock itself, you do not take delivery of shares — CME’s contracts are cash-settled against the underlying stock’s official closing price at expiry, so the position is resolved in cash rather than by transferring shares.

Like other futures, an SSF has linear, symmetric profit and loss: every tick the underlying moves changes your position by a fixed dollar amount, in either direction. It is a leveraged instrument — you post margin, a fraction of the contract’s notional value, to control a much larger exposure. That leverage cuts both ways and is the single most important thing to understand before trading.

CME Group launched single stock futures on July 27, 2026, listed on the CME Globex electronic platform. The initial lineup covers 50+ of the largest US stocks drawn from the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, and Russell 1000 — names such as AAPL, AMZN, GOOGL, META, NVDA, TSLA, MU (Micron), Pfizer, and Walmart.

The launch introduced two contract sizes: 55 standard contracts representing 100 shares each, and 22 micro contracts representing 10 shares each. Listing SSFs on a regulated futures exchange means positions are centrally cleared, which reduces counterparty risk compared with over-the-counter equity derivatives.

A standard SSF controls 100 shares of the underlying stock, so its notional value tracks 100 times the share price. For a stock trading in the hundreds of dollars, a single standard contract can represent tens of thousands of dollars of exposure — meaningful size that suits larger accounts and active traders.

A micro SSF controls just 10 shares, one-tenth the size. Micros make the product accessible to smaller accounts and allow much finer position sizing: you can scale in and out, hedge more precisely, or simply keep risk small while learning the instrument. Choosing the right contract size for your account is a core part of risk control — start small.

CME single stock futures are cash-settled, not physically delivered. At expiry the contract settles against the underlying stock’s closing price, and the difference between your entry and the settlement value is credited or debited in cash. You never end up holding actual shares, which simplifies the mechanics for pure directional trading.

The contracts follow a quarterly expiry cycle. If you want to hold a directional view beyond an expiry, you roll the position — close the expiring contract and open the next quarter’s — rather than let it settle. Traders typically roll ahead of expiry to maintain continuous exposure and avoid the settlement mechanics.

A defining advantage of SSFs is that they trade on CME Globex for roughly 23 hours a day, far beyond the standard US stock market session. That means you can react to overnight news — an earnings surprise, a macro headline, or an after-hours move — without waiting for the equity market to reopen.

Extended access is a double-edged sword. Liquidity can thin out during overnight hours, spreads can widen, and a fast move against a leveraged position can be costly when the book is light. Treat off-hours trading with extra caution and size positions accordingly.

Traders choose SSFs over owning shares for a few reasons. Leverage lets a smaller amount of capital control a larger position, so margin efficiency is higher than buying stock outright. Near-24-hour access allows trading around news the cash market cannot. And going short is straightforward — no locating or borrowing shares — which makes bearish and hedging trades cleaner than shorting equities.

Those benefits come with real trade-offs. SSFs are leveraged and carry substantial risk: losses can exceed your posted margin on an adverse move, you receive no shareholder rights or dividends (though contract pricing reflects expected dividends), and you must manage expiry and rolls. This is general educational information, not financial or investment advice — size conservatively, use stops, and treat capital preservation as the priority.