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.
How Schwab’s single stock futures give traders more leverage
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.
This product already failed once in U.S. markets
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.
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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.
“When we introduced them the first time, they failed miserably,” Duffy told analysts, Fortune reported. “The world has evolved since 2000.”
CME relaunched the contracts on July 27, 2026, with over 35 retail partners aiming day-one readiness, Morgan Stanley analyst Michael Cyprys wrote in a research note reported by CNBC.
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Leverage and risk cut both ways for Schwab’s retail traders
The simplified structure that makes these contracts appealing to newer traders also concentrates risk in ways that deserve careful examination.
Schwab’s disclosures warn that leveraged futures positions can produce losses exceeding the initial margin deposit, the company’s product page confirmed.
Futures accounts also have no coverage from the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, a safeguard that standard brokerage accounts typically provide.
Mat Cashman, principal for investor education at the Options Clearing Corp., warned that off-hours trading around earnings announcements tends to produce volatile pricing, Fortune reported.
Unlike commission-free stock and options platforms at most retail brokerages, every futures trade here adds per-contract fees that raise round-trip costs.
Schwab is pushing hard on a product with a checkered past
Schwab reported $13.08 trillion in total client assets and a record 11.9 million daily average trades during the second quarter of 2026, its July 21, 2026, earnings release confirmed.
James Kostulias, Managing Director and Head of Trading Services at Charles Schwab, said the addition of single stock futures broadens the firm’s trading lineup and reinforces its appeal to retail traders.
Adding Single Stock Futures expands the breadth of our trading offering and strengthens our position as a destination for retail traders
Index futures already represent about 75% of Schwab’s futures trading volume, Kostulias said in the August 12 announcement, and single stock futures extend that franchise to individual companies.
What the margin math means for a trading account
Schwab’s product disclosures describe the leverage embedded in these contracts as a significant risk factor distinct from owning shares outright.
A 15% initial margin translates to controlling roughly 6.7 times the cash deposit, based on CME’s margin structure disclosed at contract launch.
Every $1 move in the underlying stock produces a $100 gain or loss on each standard contract, which sets the standard multiplier at 100 shares, according to the CME’s contract specifications.
A 15% decline in the stock can wipe out the entire initial margin in a single session under those leverage conditions.
Schwab’s risk disclosures highlight two dimensions of the product’s risk profile: the drawdown a leveraged position can produce during 23-hour trading, and how total round-trip futures costs compare with buying or shorting the same shares through a standard brokerage account.
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