The stock market can be an intimidating machine if you’re just getting into it. If you’re looking to buy a share in a successful company like Apple or Google, it might be disheartening when you see that just one stock of Google costs over $1,000 (as of December 2017). Fractional shares are here to help.

For quite a while, the only way to start investing in the stock market was by investing in whole stocks, which can get very expensive to someone recently out of college. This isn’t ideal because this leaves money on the table for millions of people who want to build wealth through investing. This is the reason fractional shares were introduced and are now made widely popular with apps like Stockpile.

Fractional shares are a pretty simple concept! Let’s say that you wanted to invest in a share of Apple, which costs $174.88 as of December 21st, 2017. You might be a college student or a recent grad, and investing in a whole share might be outside of your budget.

With fractional investing, you’re able to invest any amount in Apple and get a fraction of a share. So you may not be able to invest in a whole share, but you could afford to purchase 1/4 of Apple’s stock, which is worth $43.50. Fractional shares allow anyone to invest in a fraction of any stock on the stock market.

The biggest benefit is that the barrier to entry to get into stock market investing is practically zero. Before technology enabled the existence of fractional shares, some brokerages charged north of $2,000 to open up an account, let alone start investing in stocks. Now, all someone needs is a few bucks and access to the internet or a smartphone, and anyone can start investing in the stock market.

With fractional shares, anyone on a limited budget can get the true experience of trading on the stock market.

What are some of the standard concepts of investing in the stock market? Diversify. Don’t react with emotions. Play the long game.

Investing in fractional shares allows you to learn and practice getting better at these concepts. For example, diversification is harder when you can only afford two stocks from two companies. It’s much more attainable with fractional shares, as you could have a diverse portfolio full of different portions of shares. This gives you real experience practicing what a real stock trader goes through on Wall Street.

Once you start building your wealth over time and you’re able to invest in full stocks, you’ll already be a pro and know the rules of the stock market.

Luckily, Stockpile is the perfect platform to invest in fractional shares. Our universe includes more than 2,000 stocks, ADRs, and ETFs, including every stock in the S&P 500.  You can access our universe by clicking here or clicking on the Buy Stock button when you log in to your Stockpile account.

You can always check out our Beginner's Guide here for more information to help you out as you begin your investment journey!