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US event contracts exchange Rothera has received approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for a new category of swap tied to a key performance indicator (KPI) of a listed company. The first reference company is electric vehicle maker Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Rothera, a joint venture between US retail trading platform Robinhood and market maker Susquehanna International Group, said the contract is the first of its kind to be approved by the CFTC. It is designed to give institutions and intermediaries a direct way to manage risk tied to specific measures of company performance.
On the basis of the approval, Rothera's corporate KPI swaps will cover three categories:
- Company financial reporting swaps, covering metrics such as earnings, sales, margins and expenses
- Company platform usage swaps, covering metrics such as active users, customers, flights and trips
- Company production metric swaps, covering metrics such as units produced and units delivered
Rollout Starts This Autumn
Rothera will begin a gradual rollout of KPI contracts this autumn, starting with platform usage and production contracts listed on its exchange. Initial listings are timed ahead of the relevant companies' quarterly reporting dates.
"Today marks a critical step for investors who have been awaiting the expansion of event contract categories to cover new and diversified financial markets use cases. Rothera's introduction of corporate KPI contracts seeks to offer market participants high utility products as the event contract market matures. Corporate KPI contracts allow market participants of all sizes a more precise way to manage risk and exposure to specific business outcomes and performance, positioning Rothera at the forefront driving market evolution." - Tom Chippas, CEO, Rothera
Two Regulators, The Same Corporate Metrics
The CFTC approval follows the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) decision on 13 October to let options exchange operator Cboe Global Markets list binary options tied to corporate KPIs, such as Apple's iPhone net sales and Tesla's vehicle production. Cboe plans to start with contracts on 23 companies, including Apple, Tesla, Coinbase and Robinhood itself, with Robinhood as its first retail brokerage partner.
Rothera and prediction markets exchange Kalshi had both written to the SEC in August, asking it to wait until a joint SEC and CFTC review of how such products should be classified had concluded. In approving Cboe's proposal, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said the decision did not rule out CFTC jurisdiction over differently structured contracts tied to the same metrics.
Rothera's Tesla contract has been classified as a swap under the Commodity Exchange Act, which places it under the CFTC rather than the SEC.
Rothera's First Full Quarter
Rothera runs a CFTC-regulated exchange and clearing house for event contracts, serving futures commission merchants, intermediaries and market makers. Robinhood and Susquehanna acquired the venue, formerly MIAXdx, in January 2026.
Robinhood's third quarter results, published on 27 October, showed Rothera passing $100 million in annualised revenue in its first full quarter of operation. More than 6.4 billion contracts have traded on the exchange since launch.
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