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A stock I had gave me some kind of dividend into 2 other stocks from a venture capital. Basically I never purchased those venture stocks and but I now have a tiny position on them (now worth about 2$ each).

Just to make it mentally worst, their value dropped 80% shortly after they appeared in my portfolio so it's now a red line in my list of positions.

My broker's commission is 9.99$. Meaning it would cost me about 16$ to get rid of 2 stocks I never wanted.

Are there any options available to me or is paying to sell my only option here?

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There are no options available to you unless your broker negotiates commission rate on a trade by trade basis (see the 1980's). At $9.99 per trade, fahgettaboudit. No option available.

If the total value of each 'tiny position' is $2, again, fahgettaboudit. Buy & Hope is your only friend now.

$9.99 per trade is on the high side for discount brokers. I'd suggest that unless you trade very infrequently, you consider using one of the many that charge much less. These days, the competitive price in the US is about $4.95 per. I am aware of some that charge nothing, 50 cents per 100 shares and $2.95. Some also provide X number of free trades. $9.99 can really add up if you're a frequent flier.

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  • I'm from Canada and don't trade that often. Questrade would be a better option, but after getting hit with no activity charges (when I began investing and had a small portfolio), I moved away from them
    – FMaz008
    Commented Dec 4, 2018 at 17:08
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I see two options (no pun intended): 1. Do nothing. Let them set in your portfolio indefinitely. I suppose this clutters up any listings a bit but so what? 2. Buy more of the stock. Then make one sales, and thus presumably pay only one commission to sell the old plus the new. But frankly, I wouldn't buy a stock just to do this.

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  • 2
    Buying more of a beaten down stock to save on a $9.99 commission is bad strategy.
    – Bob Baerker
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 16:39
  • @BobBaerker Yeah, that's what I was trying to say with my last sentence. If you think the stock will go up, maybe saving the $10 would be a small extra incentive to buy more of this stock. But it would be incredibly foolish to buy a stock that you expect to go down for a reason like this. Of course people do stuff like this all the time. "To recover my $10 in sunk costs, I spent an extra $100. So, yeah, I lost $100, but I got my $10 back!!"
    – Jay
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 16:45
  • If these are two $10 positions that lost 80% of their value and are now worth $2 each (a total loss of $16), then this is a waste of time. It's not even worth selling the positions to harvest the loss for a tax deduction. If there was M&A and the original stock had options and adjusted options still exist then there might be a way to unload all positions but that's a bit esoteric and is a really long shot. Acceptance may be the only choice.
    – Bob Baerker
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 16:58
  • My option 2 above was mostly intended to be a "if you really really want to get some value", and I promptly disclaimed it myself. I was being whimsical. Sorry if that wasn't clear. But seriously, if you expected the stock to go back up, then to buy additional shares and sell them at some future date, bundling these other 2 shares in to the sale, would mean you would get an extra $4 profit. My estimate of what I might make would have to be a VERY close call for $4 to make a difference in a buy decision.
    – Jay
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 18:33
  • I suppose that if you bought additional shares and resold them at a $17 profit, minus the $20 in commissions ($10 to buy and another $10 to sell) means you lose $3. But the $4 sitting there is unusable money, so if you can roll that into the sale and pay one commission, then your effective profit is $1. As I say, I can't imagine putting a lot of effort into making $4.
    – Jay
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 18:35

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