Stockpile.com: Gift Stocks To Friends & Family With Stock Giftcards

Stockpile.com is a new website that aims to make purchasing single stocks as gifts easier. The basic idea is this:

• You choose a stock
• You select how much you want to purchase (in dollars)
• You can add an optional message
• You then pay by debit or credit card
• Stockpile then sends the “stock gift card” to the recipient
• The recipient either then logs in or creates an account with Stockpile.com and redeems their gift card for fractional shares in the company they received

You don’t have to use the service to purchase stocks for friends, you can also use it to purchase stocks for yourself.

At the moment Stockpile isn’t accepting new users automatically, you need to join their waitlist first and be invited.

Fees

There are a number of fees when you use Stockpile, you can view the full fee table by clicking here.

• Credit card/debit card processing fees: 2.9% + $3 per gift card. For example, if you purchase a $100 gift card you’ll pay $5.9 in fees
• Buying stock for yourself using a linked bank account: $0.99 per trade
• Selling stock: $0.99 per trade + SEC/TAF fees

The fees are quite expensive, especially for credit and debit card processing. Stockpile are able to reduce their own trading fees by doing batch trades (e.g they aggregate customer trades, so you won’t necessarily receive the same price as when you placed your order).

Final Thoughts

I find stockpile.com to be a bit gimmicky, I can see a lot of people using it to teach younger people the value in investing. My problem with this is that it actually sends the completely wrong message. It’s incredibly difficult to beat the market over a long period of time, it’s downright impossible to do so when you’re also paying excessive fees on top of that.

I understand that investing in a low fee mutual fund isn’t sexy, but over the long run you’re going to be much better off doing that than purchasing individual stocks. Stockpile.com is also currently in the process of making deals with financial institutions and credit card issuers in particular to partner with them, meaning it’ll soon be possible to turn your loyalty points/miles into Stockpile.com gift cards (which can then be used to purchase individual stocks).

What are your thoughts on Stockpile? Would you ever use this service? Let us know in the comments/why or why not.