SIFMA Warns CFTC of Risks in 24/7 Futures Trading

SIFMA and its Asset Management Group warned the CFTC that letting standard futures contracts trade 24 hours a day, seven days a week, raises significant market structure, clearing, liquidity, and risk management concerns.

The association was responding to the CFTC's request for comment on 24/7 trading of standard futures and on perpetual contracts referencing physically delivered or storable energy commodities. SIFMA's letter focused principally on the futures question and did not respond to each item in the request.

SIFMA said it supports responsible innovation in U.S. derivatives markets and does not view expanded trading hours as inherently inappropriate. Its concern was sequencing: any expansion should be data-driven and supported by infrastructure that lets participants manage the resulting risks.

The association said 24/7 trading should be evaluated holistically across the full market ecosystem. A market trading continuously while relying on clearing, collateral, payment, settlement, and default management systems that do not run continuously could relocate risk rather than reduce it, SIFMA warned, echoing points it made jointly with ISDA in response to a previous CFTC request for comment in 2025 (see prior coverage).

SIFMA distinguished weekend and holiday trading from existing extended-hours futures trading, arguing that continuous weekend and holiday sessions would reduce or eliminate the maintenance, reconciliation, and operational reset periods that support market resiliency. A tradable market during those periods should not be equated with robust or representative liquidity, SIFMA said, warning that diminished liquidity could widen spreads, increase volatility, and reduce price transparency.

The association urged the CFTC to conduct a product-by-product review rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, citing wide variation in liquidity profiles and operational dependencies across asset classes. It also cautioned against default management models relying on automatic liquidation or compressed cure periods, arguing these could undermine hedging and central clearing protections. Overall, SIFMA stressed that any changes to trading hours should be judged by their effect on end-user hedging, price discovery, and benchmark integrity.