Buying Fractional Shares on Wells Fargo: Key Takeaways
• Wells Fargo now offers partial shares investing in stocks and ETFs.
• Fractional-share orders at Wells Fargo must be placed on the broker’s mobile app.
• The minimum trade amount is $10, and the maximum is $25,000.
With a WellsTrade brokerage account, you can now buy stocks and ETFs in whole dollars, which results in fractional shares. For more details, read on.
Overview of Fractional-Share Trading at Wells Fargo
WellsTrade has introduced fractional-share trading in stocks and ETFs, called Stock Fractions℠. This allows you to place an order in a whole-dollar amount, which results in purchasing a fraction of a share. Up to three decimal places are used (e.g., 4.981 shares). Dividends are earned proportionally on securities that pay them, as long as the dividend is at least one cent. However, voting rights may not apply to fractional shares.
Submitting a Wells Fargo Fractional-Share Order
WellsTrade’s fractional-share service is only available on its mobile app. To place a whole-dollar order, log into the Wells Fargo mobile app, tap on your brokerage account, and navigate to the trading hub. From there, tap on the Trade & Quotes tab, and scroll down to the Stock Fractions link. This will display a list of eligible securities. Not all stocks and ETFs are included—some small-cap stocks on the Nasdaq may be missing—but major stocks and ETFs are available.
Once you select a security from the list, you’ll see the whole-dollar order ticket. Pre-installed amounts of $10, $50, and $100 are available, but you can also enter a custom amount. After entering the desired amount, preview the order and submit it if everything looks correct.
This fractional-share order ticket only supports market orders. You cannot use WellsTrade’s regular order ticket for whole-dollar trades.
Selling Fractional-Share Positions
After completing a whole-dollar purchase, you can sell the shares as whole shares or fractional shares. However, you cannot sell a position leaving less than one share; the entire position will be liquidated in this case. Both market and limit orders are available for selling fractional shares.
Whole-Dollar Trades in Mutual Funds
WellsTrade also supports whole-dollar trading in mutual funds. In fact, all mutual fund trades must be in dollar amounts.
Cost of Fractional-Share Trades at Wells Fargo
WellsTrade does not charge any extra fees for whole-dollar trades in stocks, ETFs, or mutual funds. There are no commissions on online trades of stocks and ETFs, and many mutual funds have no transaction fees.
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Robinhood as an Alternative
Robinhood also offers fractional-share trading in stocks and ETFs. The list of available securities
is larger than WellsTrade’s. For instance, the small-cap stock Iovance Biotherapeutics (ticker IOVA) can be traded in whole dollars at Robinhood, but not at WellsTrade. However, not all stocks are eligible on Robinhood. Stocks must have a market price of at least $1.00 and a market cap of $25 million or more.
Another advantage Robinhood offers is the ability to trade fractional shares on both its website and mobile app, without needing a special order ticket.
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Updated on 10/11/2024.
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