If you ever get to the screen when you're buying an ETF and you're confused, here is a 60 second explanation of exactly what you need to know.

If you ever get to the screen when you're buying an ETF and you're confused, here is a 60 second explanation of exactly what you need to know. Well, don't I need $335 to buy VTI? If you are buying in shares and you want to buy one share, then yes, you would technically need $335 to buy the share. You can actually buy in a dollar amount. So let's say you only have $100 to invest and you want to put it in VTI, whatever partial share amount equates to $100. Market order, using the same example, let's say at 11:00 a.m. you place the order, maybe you'll get half a share. If you place that order at 2:00 p.m., now instead of only getting half a share, maybe you'll get .75 of a share. You have no actual control over the price in which you're purchasing the shares, or in this case, the partial shares. Okay, now on to limit orders. Let's use VTI. Let's say VTI is trading at $335. You think that that's way too high. I want to buy VTI, I want to buy one share, but I only want to buy it if it goes down to $300 per share or below. You have a lot more control over the actual price. What happens if VTI never goes down to 300? Then you're just simply never going to own it.