Trading stocks through Schwab no longer necessarily requires buying a company's shares outright, opening a new way with significantly less cash up front. The product is called a single stock future, and it comes with a track record that the marketing materials skip over entirely. Charles Schwab Futures & Forex launched the contracts on more than 50 U.S. equities on August 12, 2026, covering the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100 and Russell 1000.
Schwab describes it as a simpler, cheaper alternative to options for traders who want leveraged exposure to popular S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 names like Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, and Amazon. Lower margin requirements, no borrow fees for short positions, and nearly round-the-clock trading access sit at the top of the pitch. The catch is that this exact product already existed in U.S. markets, attracted almost no interest, and disappeared by September 2020.
Schwab's contracts trade on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and let investors go long or short on individual stocks without owning shares, the company confirmed. Each standard contract represents 100 shares, and micro contracts covering 10 shares are available for traders who want smaller positions in expensive names. The commission runs $2.25 per contract per side, plus exchange and regulatory fees, and only futures-approved accounts qualify, Schwab's pricing page confirmed.
The margin structure sets these contracts apart from traditional stock purchases and gives traders considerably more leverage with their capital. Under federal Regulation T, buying stocks on margin requires about 50% of the position's notional value in cash up front, the Code of Federal Regulations showed. Single stock futures require a minimum initial margin of just 15%, a threshold that federal securities and commodities regulators jointly finalized in 2020, according to the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission. That difference between the 50% Regulation T requirement and the 15% futures margin substantially alters the capital math for anyone considering leveraged stock exposure through a futures account at Schwab. For a stock trading at $200, a trader could control 100 shares by posting about $3,000 instead of $10,000 under standard margin.
Congress legalized futures on individual stocks through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, and two exchanges (Nasdaq Liffe Markets and OneChicago) launched the contracts in November 2002, as cited by the New York Times. High margin requirements, thin liquidity, and limited broker participation kept retail adoption of the original contracts close to zero throughout their entire lifespan. Schwab plots S&P 500 prediction markets push with Cboe Morgan Stanley doubles down on Schwab after earnings Charles Schwab, Fidelity sound alarm on Roth IRA rule CME Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Terry Duffy was blunt about the record during the exchange's second-quarter earnings call on July 22, 2026.
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