Basics of Ticker Symbols

Ticker symbols are the identifications of companies on a exchange listed. They are not limited to stock exchanges; they are there for almost all financial instruments which are publicly traded. Ticker symbols derive their name from old noisy machines used by brokers for received buy and sell orders, which make ticking sounds.

Different exchanges have different rules for ticker symbols. While New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has symbols with 1 to 3 characters (eg: T for AT&T and VZ for Verizon), NASDAQ has 4 or 5 letter symbols (eg: MSFT for Microsoft). It is common to have different symbols for same company stocks. Usually it is the exchange which provides a symbol (at random) to a newly listed stock, or the company can suggest the market to offer a particular symbol (which reflects their name/brand) available for its company stocks (eg: JAVA for Sun Microsystems and GOLD for Randgold Resources). Companies can also contract the exchange to change its ticker symbol if necessary.

Sometimes additional letters are added to ticker symbols of listed stocks to indicate some specific information. Nasdaq adds A and B to class A and B stocks respectively, D for new listed stocks, E if the company not filed it forms with SEC, Q if the company undergoing bankruptcy, F for foreign stocks, Y for ADRs, C for temporary qualification exceptions, etc. This helps the traders to identify the status of stocks quickly.

NobleTrading.com Offers Online Stock Trading, Online Options Trading
Online Futures Trading, Online Forex Trading
Worldwide Brokerage Service, Day Trading Brokerage