Equity perps — short for equity perpetuals, or "stock perps" — are perpetual futures contracts that track the price of a stock. They give you price exposure to a company like Tesla or Nvidia without ever owning the underlying share. You can go long or short, use leverage, and hold the position for as long as you want.
How Equity Perps Work
When you open an equity perp, you're not buying stock. You're entering a contract whose value moves with the stock's price:
- Go long if you expect the price to rise.
- Go short if you expect it to fall.
- A funding rate keeps the perp tethered to the real stock price.
That last point matters. Because a perp never expires, there's nothing forcing its price to match the underlying. The funding rate is a small periodic payment between longs and shorts that nudges the contract price back toward the stock — exactly the same mechanism crypto perps use.
Equity Perps vs Owning Shares
The difference between a stock perp and a real share comes down to ownership:
- No ownership rights. A perp gives you price exposure, not equity. That means no dividends and no voting.
- Leverage. With a share, $1,000 buys $1,000 of stock. With a perp, $1,000 of margin can control a larger position. On Legend, names like TSLA and NVDA support up to 20x. Some equities are isolated-margin-only, which caps your loss to that position's margin.
- Long or short with equal ease. Shorting a real stock requires a borrow. With a perp, short is just the other direction of the same trade.
- Always on. Shares stop at the closing bell; equity perps are onchain contracts, so they trade around the clock.
Why Use a Perp Instead of Buying the Stock?
Equity perps shine when you want flexibility:
- Express a short thesis cleanly, without options or a stock-borrow.
- Size with less capital thanks to leverage — though leverage amplifies losses as well as gains.
- Trade names you otherwise couldn't, including pre-IPO companies that have no public shares yet.
- Keep everything in one wallet, alongside crypto, commodity, FX, and index perps.
Used carefully, equity perps are a powerful tool. Used recklessly, leverage can wipe out a position fast — so keep size modest and define your risk before entering. To see which stocks are live, check can you trade stocks on Legend.