Blog

Blog | Product features

Track fractional shares with Sharesight

by David Olsen, Senior Marketing Manager — Content/SEO, Sharesight | May 16th 2018

As we’ve continued to add support for global stock markets, including Canada’s three largest markets, and the NASDAQ, NYSE, NYSE American and OTC markets, the ability to handle fractional shares in Sharesight has been a highly requested feature. Today we’re pleased to announce that we’ve added fractional share support across those markets with brokers that permit trading in fractional quantities.

$featured - Track fractional shares$

What are fractional shares?

Fractional shares are holdings that amount to less that one full share. Typically these fractional quantities are the result of share splits, employee share plans, or dividend reinvestment plans, however a growing number of brokers offer fractional quantities for sale, as popularised by most robo-advisors, and online brokers such as Stockpile in the USA and Stake in Australia.

Benefits of fractional shares

Lets you put all of your cash to work immediately (rather than wait to buy a whole share)
Helps you best balance your portfolio allocation (single units of a highly priced share can distort small portfolios)
Allows you to make the most of dollar cost averaging

Caveats of fractional shares

Typically can't vote in company elections
Rounding may impact your ability to receive dividends - if you own 10% of a share, and that share pays a 1 cent dividend, you may not receive a dividend payment at all
Brokers that offer fractional share quantities may charge additional fees for the service

Which markets does Sharesight support fractional shares for?

In addition to allowing fractional quantities for interest rate instruments and managed funds, Sharesight supports fractional quantities on the following markets:

AMEX (NYSE American)
CNSX (Canadian Securities Exchange)
CVE (Toronto TSX Ventures Exchange)
HKG (Hong Kong Stock Exchange)
LSE (London Stock Exchange)
JSE (Johannesburg Stock Exchange)
NASDAQ
NYSE (New York Stock Exchange)
OTC (Over the Counter)
OTCBB (Over the Counter Bulletin Board)
TSE (Toronto Stock Exchange)

$screenshot fractional-shares$

If you encounter a market on which you can trade in fractional quantities but that we have not yet enabled, let us know in the Sharesight community and we can look into enabling fractional support for it.

Also note, you can merge fractional quantities using our Merge Holding feature, provided that you are merging into a market that supports fractional quantities.