Trading fractional shares allows you to invest in companies, when you cannot afford the full share price.

It also makes it easier for you to diversify your portfolio by allowing you to purchase fractional amounts in multiple companies when you otherwise may have only been able to purchase whole shares in one or two companies. If you enable your account to trade in fractions, you will buy or sell a fraction of a share based on the amount of cash you specify.

For example, if you want to spend $500 but one share of the stock you want to buy is currently at $1000 you would end up with 0.5 shares.

Please note that fractional shares are not tradable after/before US market regular trade hours.