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January 29, 2020 at 12:52 PM
This time Fidelity Investments has beaten Schwab to the punch.
Although Schwab announced in October that it would be allowing trading in fractional shares for stock trading, it hasn’t launched that yet. Fidelity has, though it lagged Schwab in ending commissions on stock, ETF and options trades by a little more than a week.
Beginning today, Fidelity is rolling out real-time fractional shares trading not just for stocks but for ETFs to retail customers. The rollout will continue over the next several weeks. All fractional trades will be executed in real time during market hours and must be market or limit order types.
Fractional share trading will be available in most Fidelity retail accounts including brokerage, HSAs, IRAs and self-directed brokerage accounts within workplace retirement plans. No mention was made about advisor accounts, but a Fidelity spokeswoman the firm is “currently gauging demand for this capability from advisors and working with them to address how we can meet their specific trading needs.”
“Investing at Fidelity just got easier, and more accessible, with dollar-based investing,” said Scott Ignall, head of Fidelity’s retail brokerage business. “Customers can now own a piece of their favorite companies and ETFs based on how much they want to invest, independent of the share price.”
A retail customer with $100, for example, will be able to buy IVV, the iShares S&P 500 index ETF, even though the ETF has been trading around $330 per share.
