1Yr·

Have you ever thought about how companies actually get their ticker symbols?

Of course, you can make it as easy as Okta and $OKTA (+1.11%) or just take Meta $META (-0.26%) , $UBER (+0.5%) , $SAP (+0.93%) etc. or you can be clever like Porsche with $P911 (-0.26%) or Salesforce with $CRM (+0.67%) and advertise the product with your own ticker.

But then there are also companies that omit a letter from their name for no reason, such as $BAS (+0.02%) , $PEP (+2.05%) or $TSLA (-4.66%) and there are really crazy ones that simply use $AAPL (+0.51%) instead of $APPLE or $BAYN (-1.24%) instead of $BAYER. Steve Jobs can't tell me that there was nothing better than writing Apple with two A's back then.

And of course there are $AFX (+0.24%) and $KO (+1.24%) the ticker has nothing to do with the actual name.

Finally, there is also the faction that simply uses the classic $C (+0.42%) , $O (+0.99%) , $V (+1.28%) or $F (-0.2%) which at least makes sense because it really is much shorter.

8 Comments

Ronald@AlterMann

1Yr

No, I didn't because it doesn't help me on my path to world domination

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Alpalaka@Alpalaka

1Yr

$ZZZ I find it quite suitable, although $FUN is almost even better

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Staatsmann@Staatsmann

1Yr

Tickers are applied for together with the listings for each stock exchange. However, with a primary listing on one of the major stock exchanges, the ticker can also be secured for other exchanges, but is not mandatory.

This is why $AAPL is always Apple on the NYSE, Xetra, TSX and LSX.
However, other companies do not care, which is why $PEAK is Healthpeak Properties in Germany but uses the ticker $DOC on the NYSE.
Tickers are also not unique and may be assigned more than once at any time.

Unlike the ISIN, which is unique.
(Theoretically like the WKN, but the WKN is only relevant in Austria and Switzerland).

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