Some Fractional Share Trading Experiments at IB

Schwab permits fractional share trading (FST) only on the stocks in the SP500 index. TD --now owned by Schwab-- doesn’t support FST at all. Fido does support it, but only on mobile devices (which I don’t use). IB supports FST. So I decided to demo their platform by making some (roughly) $5 bets. The net-gain for the ten trades might not seem impressive. But 50 bps for 1-day holding-periods is good enough for the girls I go dancing with. (Nine of the positions were put on yesterday. ICL was put on pre-market today.)

My takeaway? IB’s charting sucks compared with TOS, and their order entry is clunky. But the platform is workable.

Security Trade
B S Net P/L Selection Execution Notes
ICL $4.90 $5.01 $0.11 2.24% B D left too much money on the table
AAP $6.58 $6.63 $0.05 0.76% B D left too much money on the table
EPAM $6.15 $6.16 $0.01 0.16% B D left too much money on the table
OTTR $7.27 $7.30 $0.03 0.41% B D left too much money on the table
GURE $2.67 $2.71 $0.04 1.50% D A thin, still not open for trading, but got out
NC $6.01 $6.10 $0.09 1.50% D A thin, still not open for trading, but got out
MIXT $6.91 $6.95 $0.04 0.58% D A thin, still not open for trading, but got out
NWG $6.44 $6.44 $0.00 0.00% C A trade wasn’t working, so went flat
BUD $5.44 $5.44 $0.00 0.00% C A trade wasn’t working, so went flat
CNYA $5.98 $5.90 -$0.08 -1.34% C A trade wasn’t working, so went flat
$58.35 $58.64 $0.29 0.50%
2 Likes

I agree that on a percentage basis, frac trading can be actually very useful…it adds up.

SCHW I think has now fully integrated TD…the SCHW platform I think is pretty good, but I am not a full-on trader. I want to get into swing trading and began recently with PLTR. (My goal is maybe to dollar-cost into names on a trade and then, as soon as it hits the green, even on fractions, sell)

I am not familiar with all those names, but will look them up. For me, the stocks on the S&P 500 are good enough.

esxokm,

Schwab’s reps guess that full integration with TD might still be a year away. (I’ve got accounts with both of them and still haven’t been moved.)

If you like Schwab’s trading platform and find it useful , then you owe it to yourself to demo TD’s platform, Think or Swim. With TOS, you can trade off the chart or off the DOM with a mouse click. Also, the last time I traded fractionally at Schwab, limit orders weren’t permitted.

Arindam

I got moved off, so I assume I cannot try TOS, but I will still see about that.

I’m glad you mentioned the issue about limits on fractions…I’ll have to check that out. My PLTR was not a fraction, so on both buy/sell, I obviously could do it; that is a problem if that is the case.