“There's no barrier from buying just one share. Online
brokers don't apply surcharges or other financial penalties if you don't buy a
round lot of 100 shares. But there are costs to consider, especially for those
investing relatively small amounts of money. For instance, most online brokers
charge about $10 to place a trade. That's the commission whether one share or
100 shares are bought. The problem is a $10 commission is a big bite if an
investor is just buying one share of Disney, for instance, for $80 a share.”
--- Matt Krantz --- http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/krantz/2014/03/15/downside-one-share-stock/5910523/
I am confident that I can make at least $1 on any
share based on my valuations. If your fees are 9.99 buy/sell you need a single
share of a stock to gain $20 in order to break even. If you buy 20 shares
lump-sum of any stock you just need a gain of $1 per share to break even on a
$9.99 buy/sell fee...the more shares you buy per transaction the lower your
break-even point and the better chance you have to enjoy returns from capital
gains.
Commission free S&P 500 funds/ETFs and commission free
total market funds/ETFs are good if you just want to buy one share at a time
because you do not incur transaction fees as long as you hold your share(s) for
a period of 30 days, but it could be longer depending on the broker. You can also buy some sector funds/ETFs commission free,
but they are best for traders as it is quite risky to own a single sector for
an extended period of time.
And if you mistakenly bought 1 share of a stock you can
always buy a bulk of shares to add to your position in order to lower the
break-even point if your valuations still add up to a profit.
