If you are looking to start investing in the market but don’t feel like you have enough money to buy enough shares to fully diversify your portfolio, fractional shares are a great solution. This strategy allows you to invest in stocks based on a specific dollar amount rather than buying a specific number of shares. This allows you to diversify your funds and start investing at a lower threshold. Buying fractional shares on Webull’s platform is streamlined and easy. You simply open and fund an account to access fractional shares from an approved list of thousands of stocks and ETFs. We’ll take an in-depth look at how to buy fractional shares through Webull and cover the basics to help you decide if fractional share trading is the right fit for your portfolio needs.
How to Buy Fractional Shares on Webull
Buying fractional shares on Webull is a very simple process. To open an account, you have to provide some basic personal information as well as details on your employment, financial status, and what type of securities you want to invest in. Once the application has been filled out, most investors will receive an email with account approval within minutes. Once the account has been approved, you merely need to fund the account and you will be ready to start investing.
Step 1: Open a Webull account. Opening an account with Webull is straightforward. Users can sign up using their phone number and verification code, or sign up using their Facebook or Google profile. You will then have the option to select “open an account.” Next you will be asked to verify your identity by uploading a photo of your driver’s license or another form of identification. From there, you will enter in your basic personal information, employment information, financial information, and the type of account you want to open. Once all this is filled out, you will enter your email address for verification of account application approval. When you receive the email letting you know your account is approved, you are ready to fund your account and start investing. You can fund the account via an ACH transfer with a linked bank account using the “make your first deposit” button.
It is important to note that you can choose between a cash account and a margin account. With the cash account, you can purchase stocks with whatever funds you deposit. A margin account requires an account balance above $2,000 and unlocks the ability to use leverage beyond your balance to increase your buying power.
Step 2: Log in to your Webull account. Once you have opened a Webull account, you can login and search for the stock or exchange traded fund (ETF) that you’d like to buy fractional shares of. If fractional share trading is available for that particular stock, there will be a green diamond icon on the stock.
Step 3: Click the “Trade” tab. After deciding on the stock that you’d like to buy and determining that it can be traded in fractional shares, you will click the “trade” button at the bottom of your screen. From there, switch the order type to “market,” as fractional share trading at Webull can only take place currently as a market order during market hours.
Step 4: Change setting from “Shares” to “Dollars.” You will then need to change the setting from “share” to “USD” in order to buy fractional shares. Enter the dollar amount that you’d like to invest and review all order information for accuracy.
Step 5: Submit your order. Once you have verified your order information, click the “buy” button at the bottom of the screen to place your order. You will want to carefully review your order before clicking the “buy” button because once an order is placed, Webull does not have the option to modify an open order.
Compare Some Top Online Brokers
Platform | Fractional Share Purchases | Fractional dividend reinvestment | Available Securities |
---|---|---|---|
Webull | Yes | Yes | Equities and ETFs ONLY. The list of active symbols is maintained by Webull. |
Fidelity | Yes | Yes | More than 7,000 stocks and ETFs |
Interactive Brokers | Yes | No | More than 11,000 stocks, ETFs and ADRs |
Charles Schwab | Yes | Yes | All S&P 500 Stocks only, No ETFs |
Robinhood | Yes | Yes | ETFs and stocks above the volume and size thresholds |
What You Need to Open a Webull Brokerage Account
To open your new account at Webull, you will need to provide your basic personal and financial information.
Personal Information
When opening your account online, you will be asked to provide personal and contact information:
- Name
- Address
- Social Security number
- Date of birth
- Phone number
- Email address
- Driver’s license or other valid form of government ID
Financial Information
In addition to providing your personal information, you will be asked to provide your employment and basic financial information. After your account application has been approved, you will then have the option to fund your account via ACH transfer from your current U.S. bank account or wire transfer from U.S. or foreign banks (fees may apply for wire transfers).
Unlike a full service brokerage, Webull does not ask you about your financial goals or long-term financial planning. The platform currently offered is transactional in nature only. If you are looking for a low-cost, no-commission platform that is easy to use for placing trades, Webull is a good option. However, if you are looking for a more comprehensive platform–offering account consolidation, goal planning, or research–you may need to look elsewhere.
The Benefits of Trading on Webull
The most obvious benefit of opening an account and trading fractional shares at Webull is the speed of the process. You can literally open an account within minutes and start trading. Webull offers thousands of U.S. stocks and ETFs for fractional share trading. However, you can really only determine which stocks and ETFs are currently on the list by searching in your account dashboard and seeing if the green diamond icon that indicates fractional share availability is by the stock or ETF.
In terms of the quality of the trading platform, Webull offers a decent selection of charting tools and a basic stock screener. Webull may not be as full-featured as larger brokers, but for a streamlined, no-fee brokerage, it is more than adequate for fundamental stock research and basic technical analysis. Webull also offers access to other assets, including options that will appeal to more active traders.
Another differentiating factor is that Webull offers margin trading. Because of the volatility of the market and the fact that trading on margin is actually borrowing money from Webull that you must pay back with interest, this option may be best suited for a more seasoned investor. It is important to remember that when investing using a margin account that you will still have to pay back the original amount borrowed plus interest even if the stocks lose value.
All that said, buying fractional shares with a cash account is quick and easy, and funding your Webull account can be done via either ACH funds transfer or wire transfer.
Investopedia Gives Webull Top Ratings For:
- Best Broker for Low-Cost Options Trading
- Best Low-Cost Day Trading Platform
- Best Low-Cost Options Broker
Factors to Consider When Investing in Fractional Shares
Selection of stocks and ETFs available for fractional share investing: Webull offers thousands of stocks and ETFs for fractional share investing. However, in order to find which stocks or ETFs are approved, you must search the specific stock from your Webull account dashboard and look for the green diamond icon to determine if the stock can be traded in fractional shares or not.
Fees and commissions: Getting started at Webull is simple with $0 commissions for online U.S. stock and ETF trades. There are also no account management fees or inactivity fees to buy and sell fractional shares.
Account minimums: Investors at Webull can buy fractional shares for as low as $5; there is no minimum to open an account.
Research amenities: Once you open an account with Webull, you will have access to limited research amenities from your account dashboard. Investors can go to the “markets” tab and search any stock or ETF to see the current market price and basic information. The “news” tab is another resource that compiles articles from multiple sources across the internet on trending financial topics.
Educational content: The educational content provided by Webull is basic information on how to invest, what investment products the brokerage offers, and how to use the Webull app. Investors can access this library of videos from the “learn” tab.
FAQs
What Are Fractional Shares?
Fractional shares allow investors to buy a fraction, or portion, of a whole share of a stock. Investing in fractional shares helps you to easily diversify your portfolio and invest in companies that you may otherwise not be able to easily buy shares of. For instance, if you want to invest in a company, but the stock price is $100 per share, you don’t need to have $100 to buy a full share. At Webull, you can invest in this company for as little as $5. In this case, your stake in the company will be 0.05 of a full share (5/100). With this strategy, you are investing based on a specific dollar amount that you set, not an individual stock’s price or a certain number of shares. Buying fractional shares provides investors with a lower entry point of accessibility, thereby allowing themto gain market entry sooner into expensive stocks. Moreover, with fractional shares of ETFs, investors can diversify their portfolio at smaller account values than would otherwise be possible.
What Is Webull?
Webull, founded in 2017, is a Chinese-owned company headquartered in New York. Webull is a discount broker that offers limited services and a straightforward, no-frills platform. Offering commission-free trades, no fees, and no account minimum requirements, Webull has positioned itself to serve newer and more active traders. Currently, the company offers standard brokerage accounts, which provide the choice to invest in:
- Stocks
- ETFs
- Options
Fractional share trading is currently offered on thousands of stocks and ETFs at Webull, but it is only available for the latest version of the mobile app. Keep in mind that only stocks and ETFs from an approved list are available for fractional share trading, so while you may want to invest in options or crypto, that cannot be done fractionally at this time.
Do Fractional Shares Make You Money?
Investing in fractional shares is a good way to dollar-cost average your money into the market.
When utilizing this strategy on a regular basis, you will be buying fractions of several stocks over the course of time, which will accumulate into a portfolio that includes full shares of multiple stocks. Buying shares of a stock over time reduces the effect of market timing where you may be paying a premium or getting a discount on a transaction based on market factors. Lowering the total cost paid for an asset can make you money, provided that the asset appreciates over time. Over time, diversified portfolios are more likely than not to appreciate.
Can You Buy Fractional Shares on Charles Schwab?
Webull is not the only option when it comes to fractional share trading. Charles Schwab is an excellent online platform to buy fractional shares of stocks. Investors can choose from any stock listed on the approved list of S&P 500 stocks for an investment as low as $5. Schwab also allows investors to choose up to 30 “slices” each time they place an order, so diversifying your portfolio is quite easy to do. As many options as investors have when buying fractional shares at Charles Schwab, ETFs are one product that is not currently available. Webull offers fractional shares on select ETFs, as do other Schwab competitors like Fidelity.
Are Fractional Shares Harder to Sell?
Not owning a full share of a company can make it more complicated when you want to sell it. Webull offers investors fractional share trading as market orders only. When selling, there is a minimum of 0.00001 shares per order for closing fractional share positions. It is also noted on the website that “the rule of $5 minimum doesn't work for closing fractional share positions.” Fractional shares are not able to be transferred, so any fractional share would need to be sold prior to a transfer taking place.