Charles Schwab Launches Fractional Shares, The Ability To Gift Stock

Charles Schwab Corporation SCHW, a financial services company for the modern investor, announced Tuesday the introduction of Schwab Stock Slices, a fractional share trading service allowing investors to participate in the market with as little as $5.

This development comes after the company eliminated stock trading commissions late last year. The addition of Stock Slices plays into the firm’s effort to democratize investing across all demographics.

“Even with the recent volatility, we’re seeing high levels of engagement from many who see this as an opportunity to get into the market, and fractional shares trading through Schwab Stock Slices will provide an easy platform to do that,” Neesha Hathi, executive vice president and head of Schwab Digital Services, said in a statement. 

“Whether it’s a new investor who simply wants to get started or someone more experienced who still finds the stock price of some companies daunting, giving investors the opportunity to buy small slices of stocks is an extremely powerful tool to help people get engaged.”

With Stock Slices, investors can select a single stock or collection of stocks such as Amazon Inc AMZN, Alphabet Inc GOOGL GOOG and Apple Inc AAPL, and the total dollar amount invested is split evenly across each stock.

Once trades are executed, the shares are accessible in the client’s brokerage and can be sold individually. Additionally, Stock Slices offer users the ability to gift fractions of shares.

“We developed Schwab Stock Slices to meet two important needs we heard from clients – newer investors who want the ability to buy multiple stocks in small dollar amounts and older more affluent investors who want to more easily gift stock ownership to younger generations,” Hathi said.

“This is our first use of fractional shares, and we’re looking forward to exploring additional ways we can use the functionality to improve how clients invest.”

To learn more about financial wellness with Stock Slices, please visit schwab.com/stockslices.

Photo by bongkarn thanyakij from Pexels.