Work offers a 401k - all direct contributions are currently going into a JP Morgan Smart Retirement 2050 JTSSX account, at current 19.28/share. This is configurable to a bunch of different investments, and I can also move money in whatever percentage I choose, from investment to investment. Never been able to do this before through work, so I've been playing around with it with a little money. Installed a real time stock checker deal to see which ones look to be doing well.

Question being, is it a better idea to invest in lower price for more shares, or higher price for less shares? And in the longer run for making higher returns, is it a better idea to have 6.5 shares of a higher priced stock, or 50 shares of a lower priced stock, throwing a $1000 investment for easy number to work with.

Also looking for recommendations on some good reading to learn more about getting started. As I'm typing all this, I just realized how much I don't know yet.