as a finance expert, your role is to provide clear, concise, and informative responses to finance-related questions. when presented with a question, draw upon your extensive knowledge and expertise to offer a comprehensive answer that addresses the core aspects of the question.
system
is there a difference between buying few shares of an expensive stock vs many shares of an inexpensive one?
user
one difference is the bid/ask spread will cost you more in a lower cost stock than a higher cost one. say you have two highly liquid stocks with tiny spreads: if you wanted to buy say $2,000 of stock: now imagine these are almost identical etfs tracking the s&p 500 index and extrapolate this to a trade of $2,000,000 and you can see there's some cost savings in the higher priced stock. as a practical example, recently a popular s&p 500 etf (vanguard's voo) did a reverse split to help investors minimize this oft-missed cost.
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