Investing With ShareBuilder

The Automatic Investment Plan allows you to make dollar-based investments in stocks, ETFs and mutual funds on the security or securities you select on a schedule that you chose.

Here's how it works:

1. Select the securities you'd like to buy and pick a dollar amount to invest
   To find securities you want to buy in your plan, you can find them in our Research section or use our convenient in-page tabs (e.g. Top Stocks, Top ETFs, Mutual Funds).
2. Next, set the investment frequency and schedule of your plan for a Tuesday
   You can choose to invest when funds are available in your ShareBuilder account, on a recurring basis or one-time.
3. Transfer funds to pay for your automatic investments
   You can fund the purchase(s) either from your bank account or from funds available in your ShareBuilder account's cash balance.

Once you have followed these steps and saved your Automatic Investment Plan, ShareBuilder automatically processes your scheduled instructions, including transferring funds (if using this option), creating open orders and executing your trades. If you need to make a change to your investments or schedule, go right ahead edit your plan as often as you like.

Tip: Changes to your Automatic Investment Plan need to be done before 5:00 PM ET on the business day before an investment Tuesday. And, enough funds must be available or on the way. Otherwise, it's too late to set up a plan for the current week.

Transaction Costs for your Automatic Investment Plan are determined by the Pricing Program to which you are subscribed.

For investors who would like to place an order subject to the ongoing markets, ShareBuilder offers the ability to Trade Now. Orders placed during non-market hours will be entered when the markets next open.

To Trade Now, please follow the instructions below:

1. Navigate to Trade > Trade Now (sign in required).
2. Select an Action (Buy or Sell).
3. Enter the Symbol and # of Shares you want to trade.
4. Select an Order Type.
5. Select a Funding Source.
6. Click Next to review order details.
7. Once you have verified your order, click Place Order.

Once you have placed your order, you can check its status by navigating to Trade > Order Status (sign in required).

Note: For buy orders, funds must be available at the time the order is placed unless you are using Express Funding. For full commission details, please see our pricing and rates.

To take a peek at your recent Automatic Investment Plan orders, please follow the instructions below:

1. Go to Trade > Order Status (sign in required).
2. The default view lets you see any orders you've made in the last 60 days.

Here's a rundown of the possible order statuses you'll see on this page:

• Pending-Funding/Open: This order is open, but we haven't sent it to market, yet. You can still cancel any open orders with this status.
• If the Automatic Investing Plan order is set to open: We can't cancel the simultaneous funds transfer used to pay for these open orders.
• Processing: This means we've sent your order to market. Come back and check the final details in a little bit.
• Posted: Nice. Your order has posted to your ShareBuilder account. To view a trade confirmation, navigate to Accounts > Records & Statements > Trade Confirmations (sign in required)
• Canceled: Your order is canceled, and we didn't send it to the marketplace (is that a sigh of relief we hear?).

If you'd like to view recent trades within your ShareBuilder account, go to Trade > Order Status (sign in required). The default setting lets you view every order you've made during the past 60 days (although you can change these settings).

The possible order statuses are:

• Open – You've sent the order to market. But, the order hasn't filled yet. With the exception of market orders placed during market hours, orders with a status of open may be cancelled.
• Execution Received – This means that all or a portion of your order has been filled. Review the Details link to determine how many shares (or contracts) have been executed.
• Posted – We've filled your order. To view a trade confirmation, go to Trade > Trade Confirmations (sign in required).
• Canceled – Your order is cancelled. In the case of buy orders, any funds reserved by this order are now available for other uses.

It's always good to check the details of your buys and sells. Click on Trade > Trade Confirmations (sign in required) to check out your recent trade confirmations.

When you view confirmations, the default display period is for the Current Month. You can view older trade confirmations by selecting Last Month or Year to Date from the 'Time Period' menu.

Once you have found the trade confirmation you want to review, click View to open the confirmation in a new browser window. To print your trade confirmation, go to your browser's File menu and select Print.

Tip: Trade confirmations are only available online. To view your statements, please follow the directions below.

For whatever reason, calendar makers didn't build a lot of market holidays or other types of regularly scheduled holidays on Tuesdays. This makes it the best day for us to schedule and run the Automatic Investment Plan.

If you don't like to wait for Tuesday to come around in order to make an investment, you can always Trade any day of the week the market is open by placing online market and limit orders – which costs just a bit more.

You can switch off your Automatic Investment Plan by following the instructions below:

1. Navigate to Trade > Automatic Investing (sign in required).
2. Click the Edit link next to Plan Status.
3. Select the Switch off my Plan radio button.
4. Set up a reminder email to turn the plan back on.
5. Click Save.

Changes to your Automatic Investment Plan must be done by 5:00 PM ET on the business day before an investment Tuesday (generally, Monday at 5:00 PM ET). Otherwise, any updates you made to the plan won't happen for the current week

An active one-time investment automatically switches off at the deadline.

Switching off your plan won't affect any open orders. To view any orders that may be open on your account, go to Trade > Order Status (sign in required).

Switching on your Automatic Investment Plan is a breeze (details to follow):

1. Navigate to Trade > Automatic Investing (sign in required).
2. Click the Switch plan on link.
3. Review your plan settings and click Save.

Tip Changes to your Automatic Investment Plan must be done by 5:00 PM ET on the business day before an investment Tuesday (generally, Monday at 5:00 PM ET). Otherwise, any updates you made to the plan won't happen for the current week.

Tip (part two): An active one-time investment automatically switches off at the deadline. Switching off the plan won't affect open orders, and they'll execute as scheduled unless you cancel the orders.