%201.webp)
tastytrade has launched prediction markets on its brokerage platform using infrastructure from Apex Fintech Solutions.
The service gives customers access to CFTC-regulated event contracts tied to market-moving developments, including central bank decisions, inflation data, jobs figures, volatility, commodities and cryptocurrencies. The contracts are available around the clock within the same platform used for stocks, options and futures.
Customers can trade the contracts in a segregated account alongside existing positions through a single view. Each contract resolves to a yes-or-no outcome, with prices reflecting market expectations in real time.
Apex said tastytrade is the first brokerage to go live on its turnkey futures commission merchant infrastructure. The setup allows brokers to add prediction markets without building their own futures commission merchant technology or exchange connections from the ground up.
Product scope
The initial range covers major equity indices, Treasury yields, the VIX and the US dollar, as well as rate decisions from the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of England and Bank of Japan. It also includes economic releases such as CPI, PCE, nonfarm payrolls, GDP and ISM data.
The launch line-up also includes crypto assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and XRP. Energy and metals contracts cover crude, natural gas, gold, silver and copper.
According to the companies, contracts will run across timeframes from hourly to yearly, giving traders a way to take positions on short-term data releases as well as longer-running macro views.
The move adds to a growing list of products aimed at self-directed investors seeking direct exposure to specific outcomes rather than broader price movements in related securities or derivatives. Event contracts have drawn attention across retail trading platforms as brokers look for new ways to package macro and market views into simple instruments.
Trader demand
Pete Mulmat outlined the rationale for the launch.
"Customer demand for simple, directional trades is accelerating, and we built Prediction Markets for the way active traders already think. We focused it on the catalysts our customers already trade: the Fed, the inflation print, the VIX, crude, crypto," said Pete Mulmat, Head of Brokerage, tastytrade/IGNA.
"Most markets make you trade around the outcome and wait for the news to get interpreted. This flips it. If you have a view on the number, the decision, or the result, you trade the event, not the reaction, with defined risk, a clear payoff, no complex strategies, and 24/7 access including the evenings and weekends when traditional markets are closed," Mulmat said.
The structure marks a shift from conventional retail trading products, where investors often use options, futures or exchange-traded products to express a view on an event's likely market impact. Prediction markets instead let traders take a position on whether a specified outcome will occur.
For tastytrade, the launch broadens its product range beyond its established focus on options, futures and active retail trading education. The brokerage was established in 2017 and sits within IG US Holdings, part of IG Group.
Apex role
Travis McGhee described the significance of the deployment for Apex.
"tastytrade has one of the most engaged, sophisticated trading communities anywhere, and we built this to live right inside the platform they already use," said Travis McGhee, Global Head of Digital Markets, Apex Fintech Solutions.
"Apex's turnkey FCM infrastructure helps firms like tastytrade offer prediction markets and get to market faster without building FCM technology or connecting to exchanges from scratch. We're proud to have tastytrade as the first firm live on Apex's FCM infrastructure," McGhee said.
Apex provides custody, clearing and trading infrastructure to financial firms and has been expanding its role in digital investing systems used by brokers and wealth platforms. The prediction market launch puts its futures commission merchant setup in front of a retail trading audience through a broker with an established base of active users.
The introduction of event contracts comes as exchanges, brokers and regulators continue to examine how these products should be offered and supervised. In the US, prediction-style markets tied to economic and financial outcomes have become an area of growing commercial interest as firms test demand for short-duration, binary contracts.
At launch, tastytrade's catalogue centres on market events that already dominate trading calendars, from central bank meetings to inflation releases and moves in crypto and energy markets.