Calculate fractional-share profit or loss with dividends and fees, find the true break-even sale price, or size a position for a target net gain.
Fractional Shares Profit Formula
Without dividends or fees, profit equals the price change multiplied by the shares owned. Percent-of-one-share inputs are divided by 100. With cash dividends and flat fees, net profit = (sale price − purchase price + dividends per share) × shares − purchase fee − sale fee. Values are USD estimates before taxes and broker-specific rounding.
- Where FSP is the Fractional Shares Profit ($)
- SSP is the share selling price ($)
- SPP is the share purchase price ($)
- F is the fractional percentage of a share owned (%)
Subtract purchase price from sale price, add cash dividends per share, multiply by shares owned, then subtract both flat fees. For a percentage input, first divide the percentage by 100. Break-even and target-position modes invert this equation. The examples below assume no dividends or fees.
How to Calculate Fractional Shares Profit?
The following example problems outline how to calculate Fractional Shares Profit.
Example Problem #1
- First, determine the share selling price ($). In this example, the share selling price ($) is given as 100.
- Next, determine the share purchase price ($). For this problem, the share purchase price ($) is given as 50.
- Next, determine the fractional percentage of a share owned (%). In this case, the fractional percentage of a share owned (%) is found to be 60.
- Finally, calculate the Fractional Shares Profit using the formula above:
FSP = (SSP – SPP) * F/100
Inserting the values from above yields:
FSP = (100 – 50) * 60/100 = 30 ($)
Example Problem #2
The variables needed for this problem are provided below:
share selling price ($) = 200
share purchase price ($) = 30
fractional percentage of share owned (%) = 50
Entering these values and solving gives:
FSP = (200 – 30) * 50/100 = 85 ($)
