CME Proposes Margin Rules for Planned Single-Stock Futures

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange ("CME") proposed customer margin rules for cash-settled single-stock futures. 

In its Notice, published in the Federal Register, CME proposed changes to its Rulebook Rule 930 ("Performance Bond Requirements: Account-level") on customer performance bond requirements for security futures contracts that CME intends to list for trading. Under the proposal, customer margin for each long or short security futures position would be set at 15 percent of current market value - the floor set by SEC Rule 242.403 (required margin) and CFTC Rule 41.45 (required margin), reduced from 20 percent under the agencies' 2020 customer margin rules - with lower requirements available for offsetting positions. The rule would exclude "exempted persons" and qualifying market makers from the customer margin requirements, subject to detailed quoting and trading conditions, and would limit the collateral a customer may post to cash, eligible securities, and other assets permitted. 

The filing follows CME's notice registration in April 2026 as a national securities exchange for security futures products (See prior coverage). CME, which offered physically settled single-stock futures until 2011, now plans to list cash-settled futures on individual equity securities under separate listing rules it intends to file.

The comment deadline is June 29, 2026.