Is ING Sharebuilder a good idea, for a small investor? Buying a % of a stock when one cannot afford the whole?

Sharebuilder is a good idea if:
a) you are going to hold on to the shares and reinvest any dividends

and

B) you will either
1) invest more than 120 dollars a month with their $12/month plan
2) you save up money and buy a good sized number of shares at one time.

I have Sharebuilder and am doing OK with it, but that $12/month can really eat into your investing capital. Your account feeds should be no more than 10% of your investment budget.

You really need to figure out how much you plan on investing per month and what you are going to invest in. If you have the discipline, you can use a standard passbook savings account to save up money and then roll that money into CDs and get a decent return.

As far as the partial share purchasing goes, it can be a good thing if you are investing in a stock you could not otherwise afford, such as Google. And, if you decide to transfer your account to some other company, like etrade, those partial shares will be converted into cash instead of being transfered.

If you have never invested in stocks before, you should do some "paper trading", which would be to pick stocks and pretend like you have bought them and then track them to see how you do. If you have trouble picking winners, then you may want to choose a different investment vehicle.

there is specific issues here but a GREAT question:
All of the sharebuilder type services (ING, E-Trade etc) are useful for certain circumstatnces. BUT they are not useful for "investing to get rich quick"

A little on the history might be of some help
All of those sites were designed to allow the everyday people who had some money that they wanted to invest to have access to the exchanges at a low price. It was also designed for the professional day trader to be able to work from home or whereever and have instant access to the exchanges. There are specific differences here and that is where these sites developed their bad reputations.
As any good day trader will tell you there is a science to succesful day trading and it carries significant risk. If you are not a confident investor then you are setting yourself up for failure.

On the other hand as you described yourself you are a small investor and you are looking to make small investments. The general and safe rule of thumb is that buying a % of a stock is not the best way to go about purchasing shares. Also and here is where people generally screw up the most: getting in and out is very dangerous as well as likely to cause unwanted tax events.

If you are simply interested in putting some money into the market and investing it for a time line of at least 5 years and you are still interested in doing it yourself then the site can be just what you want. However the idea here as with all investing is to research your moves fully before you make them. Buy companies that you are confident in and who have a good track record. Don't get hung up on the idea of something having bad press all of a sudden and the price goes down. You have to decide if you are in this for the long haul or if you are likely to pannic and jump out each time the price wobbles.

Try if you can to get together at least enough money to buy 100 shares at a time. (if for nothing else when the stock pays a dividend you will get 100 of them) that way you have a chance to make noticible money. (it is far better to buy 100 shares for 4-10 bucks commision then it is to buy a percent of a share and then pay what amounts to a massive commision on it (in percentages)

Good luck!

Yes, I have been with share builder for about 8 years. I am really happy with what there service.
With share builders you are not forced to buy all your shares at once. If you see a stock move up to fast, just hold off and buy something else till it moves lower. Its great!

it only costs $4 per transaction to buy, but 15.95 to sell - other than that it gets you in the stock market in a small way

Yes, it is always a great way to get started. It will also assist you in understanding some basic concepts about investing.

Look at opening a DRIP plan, which ING is perfect for.

They are seldom talked about because brokers make very little money when they suggest them. Yet, they have proven to be one of the best, if not the best, long-term strategy on Wall Street.

The best part is you get solid annual returns from well-known, safe Blue Chip companies like: McDonalds, General Electric, Pfizer, Walmart, US Bancorp.......etc........

They are inexpensive to start and maintain, and your dividends are reinvested for free.

They are perfect for small investors, as well as big investors. They are safe and allow you to not care about whether the market is going up or down.