US exchanges get a path to stock futures with no expiry

The CFTC said on 3 November that perpetual futures on individual stocks can begin trading on eligible US exchanges. The venues must also hold the relevant SEC registration; this is not blanket permission for every trading app.

Perpetual futures extend a contract format familiar to crypto traders into individual equities. Unlike a conventional dated future, a perpetual has no scheduled expiry. The announcement concerns derivatives linked to stocks, rather than ownership of the underlying shares.

Chairman Michael Selig’s statement says the contracts were deemed approved under Commission Regulation 40.3 as security futures products. Both commodity and securities requirements apply. The relevant venues are designated contract markets also registered with the SEC to trade security futures.

The statement follows the earlier introduction of a regulated US Bitcoin perpetual contract. It provides a regulatory route for the equity version, but does not establish that a particular broker has made it available to every customer.

For readers, the next useful check is the actual exchange specification: eligibility, collateral requirements and how a position can be closed. A contract’s lack of expiry does not make its risks expire either.