Buying shares

Your bank or broker will calculate the fees you will be charged for their services, such as service fees or transaction fees. Read more about investment fees at ABN AMRO.

At ABN AMRO, you can buy and sell shares traded on stock markets around the world, including Euronext Amsterdam and the New York Stock Exchange. If you want to trade on the stock market, you’ll need an investment account. At ABN AMRO, you can choose Self-Directed Investing Basic or Self-Directed Investing Plus.

You can buy and sell whenever the stock market is open. Opening hours vary per stock exchange.

You can never tell when is the best time to sell a share. And it’s difficult to find the perfect moment to enter the market. To avoid investing all your money during a stock market peak, you can choose to start investing in stages. This means that you’re spreading your investments, and the risk, over time.

The share price is the price at which the share changes owners. A price is established when there is demand for a share, and also supply. When demand is high, the price goes up. When supply is high, i.e. lots of people want to sell the share, the price drops.

The current price is not the exact price you will pay or receive for the share. For that, you have to look at the bid price and the offer price. These two figures tell you the price at which you can sell or buy a share: 

• Bid price
  This is the highest price that someone is willing to pay for a share at a specific point in time, and at which you will be able to sell the share. Given that there are often large numbers of sellers and buyers operating on the market at the same time, the bid price fluctuates constantly.
• Offer price
  This is the lowest price at which someone is willing to sell a share. It is the price at which you will then be able to buy the share. Again, given that there are often large numbers of sellers and buyers operating on the market at the same time, the offer price is also subject to constant change.
• Spread
  The difference between the bid price and the offer price is referred to as the ‘spread’. Shares that are traded on numerous occasions on a trading day tend to have a tight spread, while shares that change owners less frequently are likely to have a wider spread.

Alongside the price that you pay for a share, you must also take various costs into account. Read more about the costs involved in investing.

Stock markets don’t just trade in direct shares in companies. Shares (and bonds) in different companies are often pooled together in funds. The advantage of this is that it spreads the risk. When one share in the fund goes down, another may retain its value or even go up. Shares can be pooled together by theme, sector or as a reflection of the overall stock market. You can invest in shares that carry a lower risk by investing in investment funds and ETFs (index trackers).