CFTC Just Opened America’s Stock Market to Perpetual Futures

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday cleared equity perpetual futures—contracts tracking individual US stocks that never expire—for trading on regulated US exchanges. Kalshi, one of the exchanges that filed to list them, submitted a September 18 filing for 58 contracts covering 55 stocks including Apple, Tesla, Nvidia and Microsoft, plus Alibaba’s US shares and two S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 funds; traders can hold a position by posting 15.5% of its value. The CFTC deemed the products approved under Regulation 40.3 after its 45-day review, and Chairman Michael Selig classified them as security futures, giving the SEC shared oversight. Better Markets, a Washington reform group, warns that such leveraged positions liquidate automatically in steep sell-offs.