When I buy IBM, CVX or OMC, I use small fractional orders of 0.1 share each, and build up my position. It felt fairly convenient, at least for liquid names, but really? Let’s list the drawbacks of this approach

— drawback: defeats fire-n-forget .. Relying on limit orders (not these fractional market orders), I have a new habit of building my order book to buy at multiple price levels. This way, I can set up a series of entry-points and go to sleep.

As such, it’s a form of fire-n-forget. Without this, I’m forced to watch the market (not really for liquidation purpose) to acquire the stock.

— drawback: slow fill .. Fractional orders may take a while to execute, perhaps due to technical issues including liquidity. I think the order is not sent to exchange, but sent to some special liquidity pool.

I experienced this “slow execution” with Asia time-zone stocks like WNS and many pink sheet illiquid stocks.