Orion has introduced fractional share trading for financial advisors who custody client assets with Schwab Advisor Services. The capability is available through Orion Trading, the company’s next-generation trading and rebalancing platform, and its order management system.
Advisors can now implement portfolio models based on exact dollar amounts instead of rounding transactions to whole shares.
This enables firms to invest a larger portion of each client portfolio, reduce uninvested cash and more closely match target asset allocations.
Because the functionality is integrated into Orion’s existing trading workflow, eligible Orion Advisor Technology clients did not need to adopt separate tools or develop manual workarounds.
Advisors using Schwab custody were able to begin placing fractional trades when the capability became available in July 2026.
Fractional trading can be particularly useful when portfolios include high-priced securities. Rather than purchasing only whole shares and leaving the remaining balance in cash, advisors can buy smaller portions of those securities.
Orion said this allows advisors to implement target models with greater precision across accounts of different sizes.
The capability can also reduce cash drag in smaller accounts and newly funded portfolios, which may otherwise remain partially uninvested until sufficient cash is available to purchase a full share.
Fractional shares may improve the precision of portfolio rebalancing activities, including model changes, glide-path adjustments and tax-loss harvesting transactions.
The functionality can also lower the practical minimum investment required for certain model portfolios.
This could make diversified model-based strategies and direct indexing available to accounts that previously fell below minimum thresholds created by whole-share trading requirements.
More precise transactions may also reduce the tracking differences between client portfolios and their target models or indexes.
Fractional share trading is currently available to Orion Advisor Technology clients using Orion Trading and to Orion Custom Indexing sub-advisory clients.
Orion provides technology supporting portfolio management, financial planning, customer relationship management, reporting and integrations with third-party platforms.
As of June 30, 2026, Orion serviced approximately $6.6 trillion in assets under administration and $211 billion in wealth management assets.
The company supports more than 8.6 million technology accounts and provides technology to thousands of independent advisory firms.
KEY QUOTE:
“Because it’s built into Orion Trading and our OMS, advisors get fractional trading in the same workflow they already use, implementing models to the dollar and reducing cash drag.”
Trent Mumma, Chief Product Officer at Orion
