Holly Black: This week's reader asks, "Is it worth buying fractional share in a company?" So, interesting one. Fractional share, as you might have guessed, is when instead of having to buy a whole share in a company, you can buy a portion of it instead. So, you can't do this with all shares, and frankly for a lot of them there wouldn't be an awful lot of point. But the share price of some companies is so high that this is the only way an ordinary investor can access it.
So, take Berkshire Hathaway, for example, the current share price is around $414,000, and I definitely couldn't afford to buy one share in that company. So, the reason you buy a fractional share is to access those more expensive companies, and also it can be really handy for regular investors who want to invest a set amount of money each month into a company.
Downsides, they are not available for all shares, they are not available through all investment platforms; fractional shares can sometimes be more difficult to sell; you might not have voting rights and owning a fraction of the share means you only get a fraction of the dividend.