DY> I am interested in buying a small number of shares.  Can anyone tell me 
DY> what is the smallest amount in $ or in quanitity that one can buy.  Can 

The short answer is 100 shares.  You could get 100 Adelaide
Brighton Cement shares for around 100 * 1.40 = $140, plus
brokerage (minimum $60) = $200.  It's not a good idea to do
that though, as you can see, brokerage is 60/260 of the total
cost, ie 23%.  2.5% is the highest you would normally pay for
brokerage if you buy a big enough parcel.  Depends how much
you're talking about buying though.  If you have $2200 to
spend, you would be wise to buy some Coles Myer shares, because
it is still a reasonable share to be buying into, and you get
a discount card that can get you 5-10% off a lot of stuff at
Myers, Grace Bros etc.  That perk will hopefully enable you to
get more value for money than any other share.  If you spent
a lot of money buying tyres and car batteries (unfortunately
it doesn't apply to condoms), you could get a similar card from
Pacific Dunlop, who gives discounts on those mentioned items,
if you own just 100 shares (cost $320).  I can't imagine how 
many people actually find THAT useful though.  How much are
you talking about anyway?

DY> someone also recommend a cheap broker?

Ponts Securities is the cheapest available to the average person.

DY> PS : Is there any service where one can purchase shares "on-line"

Ponts are actually starting a service on the internet, but it
generally costs a lot to get onto the internet.  To use fidonet
(as you are at the moment), there is only the one way I know
you can do that, and that's to dial my BBS, and use Frank Malcolm
as your broker.  The use of my BBS will not cost you (or him)
anything.  You'll have to pay for the cost of a call of course,
but off-peak STD calls if automated should cost less than the
cost of a local call!  Around about 18c.  BFN.  Paul.
@EOT:

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