[shanxS]

As a small investor (investing around few thousand USD), how do I know which app to trust? There is Robinhood and Stash for ETFs and Stocks and then there are robot-wealth mangers like WealthFront etc.

Should I always stick to big firms like Vanguard or Fidelity? Thing I don't like about firms like Vanguard and Fidelity is that you cannot buy fraction of a unit which Robinhood/Stash allow you to do.

Any advice?

[smeyer]

Haven't both Vanguard and Fidelity started supporting fractional shares? E.g. https://www.fidelity.com/trading/fractional-shares

[atombender]

M1 is the only one that has full support for fractional share trading, I believe.

Fidelity has started to offer fractional shares, but it has some limitations: Only market and limit orders, only trades through the basic trade ticket in the mobile app, limited to NYSE/NASDAQ stocks, etc. [1] Another thing to watch out for is that fractional shares can't be transferred; they must be liquidated if you want to switch brokers.

Schwab has said they'll be launching fractional shares over the summer.

Note that most brokers already support fractional shares indirectly through DRIP [2], but that's unrelated to trading.

[1] https://www.fidelity.com/trading/fractional-shares

[2] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dividendreinvestmentpla...

[gnicholas]

> Another thing to watch out for is that fractional shares can't be transferred; they must be liquidated if you want to switch brokers.

What happens if I buy .5 shares of AAPL every week for 53 weeks? Do I have 26 undivided shares that can be transferred and one half-share that has to be liquidated, or do they treat it as 53 half-shares that all must be liquidated?

If the latter, seems like a great way to keep people locked-in. But the former could be a headache for basis reporting, especially if you could transfer to a brokerage that doesn't natively support fractional shares.

[atombender]

I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure they're combined behind the scenes. Fractional shares are really abstractions over an underlying instrument. The broker is the actual owner of the shares, and you have an indirect ownership. Among other things, it leads to a situation where you cannot take part of normal shareholder activites such as voting. The broker still needs to keeps records of the cost basis of each fraction you purchased, of course.

[ipqk]

This is generally true of whole shares too – that the brokerage technically owns the shares. And why brokerages will set up proxy voting for shareholder activities.

[perl4ever]

The broker is the "actual" owner of whole shares too, isn't it? You know, "in street name"?

[jermaustin1]

I know Vanguard does on Vanguard ETFs and MFs when you have dividend reinvest on, but I don't know about other scenarios.

[reverend_gonzo]

Interactive Brokers is a professional brokerage that has a free tier now and just added fractional shares as well.

Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, TD Ameritrade are all legitimate operations as well, but IB is what professionals use.

[ZeroCool2u]

Yes, IB is what I use too. Their paid individual account tier is only $10 a month and provides SDK's with robust support for Python, Java, and C++.

[e-clinton]

Does their paid tier include free options trading? That’s what’s attractive about Robinhood, but they cost me $7k on Monday so I’m dumping them.

[ZeroCool2u]

Only US Exchange-Listed Stocks / ETFs are commission free.[1] Honestly though, the commissions are extremely low. Definitely lower than that $7k. Just keep in mind, you get what you pay for.

[1] https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=45500

[reverend_gonzo]

Their fees are something like 10 cents if you’re trading an option. Completely irrelevant.

[a-wu]

Fidelity offers fractional shares now: https://www.fidelity.com/trading/fractional-shares

[shanxS]

Oh Great! thank you!

[zymhan]

I recommend Vanguard for their very low overhead and fees. I am a customer of theirs and Robinhood, and Vanguard's relative conservatism is a huge plus when you're investing a lot of money.

[_bxg1]

I've been very happy with Betterment (one of the first "robo-advisors", as far as I know). I'm not aware of any options for manually trading through it (not that I really want to mess with that anyway), but for automatic-management the feature set/apps/fees all seem really good.

[PascLeRasc]

I'm very very happy with Wealthfront. They make automatic investing incredibly simple and explain every step of choosing your risk tolerance. I've used Robinhood extensively and I think it's just too much work and invites you to be too active/reactionary.

[LatteLazy]

As a small investor, you don't want individual shares, let alone fractional ones. Stick to vanguard and their excellent etfs. Don't try to time markets, if they're down, trade tomorrow or next week.

Pretty much anything else is just gambling.

[WrtCdEvrydy]

I'm an M1 finance guy, but that might not be good enough for most people.