What is the smallest amount of stock you can buy on nonmutual stock through a site like fidelity.com -1 share?

Question

I am new to buying and trading stock on line. I just want to try and put a small amount down on something but don't have tons of money. Using the site fidelity.com, what is the smallest amount of stock that can be bought for an independent purchase (non mutual fund buy)? Can you always buy as small as 1 share at any time? For instance, if a share cost about 105.50, can you usually go in and just buy one share?

Answer 1

You can always buy as few shares as you want. The problem is that those great prices brokers always advertise are only for when you buy 100 shares of a stock minimum. There is a different fee (much higher) for when you buy just one.

Another way to do that is directly from companies but again you will have sticker shock on the transaction charges http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/drt/archive/2003/dt030619.html?section=&department=%E2%8A%82_department=

Answer 2

An investor can purchase as many shares as he want through any online stock discount broker. The only problem with this is that 1) Transaction Fee and 2)Buying few shares usually aren't profitable and aren't even worth it. The transaction fee for some companies varies widely. I currently and highly recommend Scottrade that has a 7 dollars always transaction fee. The 2nd problem is that buying 1 share usually won't cover the transaction fee in the short term. The share price of the stock would have to rise 7 dollars before you break even. I suggest that if you are looking for an online brokerage that you highly look and consider Scottrade.

Answer 3

As others have pointed out if you only buy one share of stock the commission will eat up anything you make, and I don't think people pointed out that commission is on both the buy and the sell so say they tell you the commission is $9.95, well that is actually going to cost you $20 because of paying buying and then selling it.

If you want to buy lower amount of shares I suggest something like http://www.sharebuilder.com/
And don't go for the real time trades.
The Basic is $4 per investment with no monthly fee and you can put in any dollar amount. As in you can buy partial shares.

I was looking at the other answers and saw FOLIOFN, and it looks like it is better then sharebuilders if you make trades at least each quarter, but if not sharebuilders seems better.

Edit: I just saw this from another post and it looks even better:
http://www.zecco.com/trading/FreeTrading.aspx?tab=CompareUs

Answer 4

Hi Sweetie,

I asked my bank the same question in Feb 2006. At first Navy Federal Credit Union promoted their full-service brokerage service and I said, no I don't want that, I want to do it MYSELF. They said FOLIOFN would let me buy fractional shares!. To buy a stock the cost is $3.50 whether it's .5 share or 50 shares.

I opened my FOLIOFN account in Feb 2006 and have been completely happy. Their platform is easy to use and very well-suited to the small, long term investor. FOLIOFN has great Customer Service that you can call and get a LIVE PERSON right away, no long menu selections!

Best wishes,

pup

Answer 5

The problem with only buying one share, is the stock has to go up a significant amount for you to earn anything. For example if you buy 1 share with fidelity, it will cost $19.95 in commission, so for you to break even it would have to go up by 19.95, and when you sell it you have another commission of $19.95, so buying one share is almost never profitable.

Answer 6

do not purchase a share that had not being paying dividend. the right time to purchase a inventory is while the industry has be happening for sometime or while there's no person interior the inventory substitute.