Here’s our Club Mailbag email investingclubmailbag@cnbc.com — so you send your questions directly to Jim Cramer and his team of analysts. We can’t offer personal investing advice. We will only consider more general questions about the investment process or stocks in the portfolio, or related industries. This week’s question: Hi Jim, I just joined the Investing Club recently, and from one Philly boy to another, here’s my question. Some of your Charitable Trust stocks are quite expensive for the average retail trader. Would I be better off buying a less costly stock, such as Walmart ($100.51), rather than a Costco ($963.48)? Another example would be buying Wells Fargo ($78.96) or Capital One ($221.53), rather than BlackRock ($1099.15) or Goldman Sachs( $738.21). Buying a more expensive stock means buying fewer shares and getting less in dividends. What do you think? — David B. This is a great question that gets right to the heart of the classic phrase, “Price is what you pay, value is what you get.” A few things can be true at the same time. Yes, stock prices vary greatly from one company to another, and the price of some shares means that folks either can’t buy them at all — looking at you, Berkshire Hathaway Class A shares — or can only buy a small number of shares, say in the case of an AutoZone , which trades well north of $4,000 apiece. What’s also true is that those facts should not, by any means, stop you from considering an investment in the company. As investors, we are concerned with value, not price. Moreover, it is the dollar amount invested in each stock, not the total share amount, that determines our exposure and therefore potential risk/reward. Whether you own 10 shares of a stock at $100 apiece ($1,000 total), or one share at $1,000, a 10% move in either direction will amount to $100 change in value. For this reason, we want to focus on valuation metrics, such as a price-to-earnings ratio , and not the stock price, when considering what we should pay for a given stock. While holding a greater number of shares may make position management easier because it provides the ability to adjust the position size with smaller trades, it’s not a good reason to own it over a better, higher-priced name. After all, the goal of investing is to make money. And while position management is a crucial component of that process, investment selection is what really determines outcomes. Buying 100 shares of a debt-laden company in a dying industry because it has a $10 stock price is not the road to financial success. Technological advancements also help overcome issues with high-priced stocks for regular investors. In recent years, many brokerage platforms have rolled out the ability to trade fractional shares. That means investors can buy and sell stocks in the dollar amounts that work best for them, regardless of the company’s “actual” share price. Since the valuation of the target does not change whether you buy one share, 10 shares, or one-tenth of a share, there is almost no downside to investing in fractional shares. There are two main caveats here: First, for the more active trader and investor, an options overlay strategy becomes more difficult because options contracts are based on 100-share lots. This is not a good enough reason to invest in a lesser company only because the stock price is more attainable. Second, voting rights are generally limited to full share ownership. However, unless you are managing significant sums of money, voting rights should not be a very high priority. The simple reality is that institutional investors and very wealthy individuals with sizable stakes on their own hold the lion’s share of the voting power. The rest of us are simply along for the ride. As for the dividend side of the equation, the same logic applies. The dollar amount of the dividend is not what matters. Rather, it is the dividend yield that investors should focus on, as this is what determines how much you get for every dollar invested. A 5% yield on 10 shares of a $100 stock ($1,000 total) amounts to the same payout as a 5% yield on one share of a $1,000 stock. In both cases, you are getting a $50 annual payout (5% of $1,000). That also goes for fractional shares. The yield will not change, and you will therefore be paid out at the same rate as investors with full shares. In both cases, the payout will be determined by the stock’s yield and the amount of money invested, not the share count owned. Sticking with the same 5% yield hypothetical, if you owned one-tenth of a $1,000 stock (meaning you invested $100), you would collect an annual payout of $5. In the end, investment selection is what really matters. You should not compromise on the selection simply to own a full share or multiple shares in a company. While some may not like the idea of investing in fractional shares, it is far more financially sensible to do so compared with the alternative of limiting your investment choices to stocks for which you can purchase full-share increments. Rather than price, focus on the underlying valuation metrics — whether that’s the P/E ratio, dividend yield, or any other metric of importance — along with additional important investment considerations, such as the quality of the management team, growth opportunities, secular trends, and so on. These metrics and fundamental characteristics will not change whether you buy full shares or fractional shares. Ask yourself these questions about the fundamentals as you consider the Costco-versus-Walmart debate, and seek to determine which of the Club’s financial names — BlackRock , Goldman Sachs , Capital One , and Wells Fargo — are most attractive to you . The answers will steer you in the right direction, regardless of the stock price. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
