Someone told me if you can't buy a hundred shares you are wasting your time.

Well if you bought 10 Apple shares in 1998 you'd have a good return at the current stock price with no split

That guys is an idiot. A 10% gain is a 10% gain. Doesn't matter if it comes from 1 stock or 100.

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A 10% gain is a 10% gain. Doesn't matter if it comes from 1 stock or 100.

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This

depends on what your transaction fees are

How old is "this guy"? It was true as recently as the 80's, you had to buy "round lots" of 100 shares or you'd face stiff extra fees. So if he's 70 and hasn't done much with stocks he probably thinks he's right - but he isn't.

BTW, this is precisely why Social Security was a great idea back in the 1930's. Back then you had to buy in round lots too, so 100 shares of, say, US Steel might cost a few thousand in 1930's dollars. Most people couldn't afford that. Most people were simply unable to save much other than buying US treasuries or municipal bonds. Of course, today we have much better options.

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He's either Rip Van Winkle or just repeating something his father told him then. Seriously, that might have had some point 30 years ago but not since then.

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Minimum transaction size for BRK.A is $20MM?

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Back in the 1930's (yes, almost 100 years ago, think about that) trade settlement was conducted entirely by paper and pen. If you wanted to conduct a trade of any size at all, you were setting into motion a process involving the following:

1) Call a broker, who was always smiling.
2) Broker calls the firm's trading desk and physically jots down on paper that he (always he) has done so in order to report back to you.
3) The trading desk tries to find out if they can do the trade internally with someone else who sells. Again, lots of paper-shuffling.
4) Assuming they can't fill the trade internally, they go to the exchange and do a deal on the floor.
5) After-hours during the next week, follow up with the other firm to settle the trade.
6) Report back to the trading desk that the deal was done.
7) Trading desk reports back to the broker that the deal was done.
8) Broker reports back to you that the deal was done.

That is one helluva lotta human labor for a single trade. Very expensive, so obviously you had to be willing to trade lots of shares to set that process going.

Now this is all automated and costs virtually nothing but 1-2 generations ago the cost was enormous, so it wasn't worthwhile unless your order was at least $5k or so - discounted by inflation.

Fo- is that how Edward Jones still does it?

After 25 years of "investing", I will state that the best returns for me were on DRIPs that I set up after I got married. We bought maybe 2 shares a month of 10 stocks or so and reinvested all the dividends. I wish I had never stopped this programmatic approach. I would be richer now.

I bought 25 of Apple last August. Then it split 7 for 1. If a 130 stock has 10 dollars of earnings, that is better to me than a 5 dollar stock with no earnings.

Consistent investing in good companies over time works. It is not as sexy as a straddle option position, but it has worked better for me that anything else I have done.