street
talk
Home » How We Think » Street Talk » Entries
Alphabet Soup
11I really need to get a hobby.
I’m sitting in the airport, waiting for my flight back from LaGarbage… errrr… LaGuardia… and I find myself thinking about ticker symbols. Specifically, I’m thinking about clever ticker symbols such as FUN (Cedar Fair), EAT (Brinker International), ZEUS (Olympic Steel), MMM (3M), CAR (Avis), ZINC (Horsehead) and LUV (Southwest Airlines). And then I start to think about the influence the language of texting might have on stock symbols. Seriously, shouldn’t some entertainment company use LOL. And who besides a company called Wood Treatment Fabricators of America would use WTF?
I don’t know about you, but I love when a company has clearly put some thought into its ticker symbol and create a “monogram” that really reflects the business rather than serves as a three- or four-letter abbreviation of the company’s name. Am I the only one that notices stuff like this?
The Conversation
Dan Dykens on April 19, 2010
Dick Johnson on April 19, 2010
Rob,
I’m with you - ya gotta “luv” those symbols with meaning.
A variation is the symbol that actually is the company name: PALM, YUM, EPIQ come to mind.
Probably investors really buy what’s behind the initials.
- Dick
Rob Berick on April 19, 2010
Good additions - thank for weighing in. (And shame on me for omitting BID in my first round).
In my next life, I’m going to work for an exchange developing tickers for listing companies. Either that or work for an iBank and be the guy that comes up for the code names for deals in development. Ha!
Chuck Hemann on April 19, 2010
Rob - Think we’ve had these conversations before, but I obviously LOVE OMG and YUM
Rob Berick on April 22, 2010
OMG is a classic - and, perhaps, the first crossover (and I don’t mean like Gary Patton) in the the ticker symbol/text-speak milieu.
Rob Berick on May 13, 2010
Got another one - XRAY (Dentsply)... love that one!
Broc Romanek on May 17, 2010
Why would a company want a stock symbol that would be so easily confused with something else? A symbol of OMG or LOL would make searching on Google, Twitter, etc. for information about a company like looking for a needle in a haystack. Probably the last thing a company would want to do…
Rob Berick on June 24, 2010
Which is why you’d go to a site like Google Finance (or Yahoo! Finance) if you’re doing strictly ticker symbol searches.
Broc Romanek on June 24, 2010
Take Twitter - if folks tweet about a company, they use the stock symbol as a shortcut because tweets are limited to 140 characters. So folks that want to search for tweets about a particular company use the symbol as the search term. So going to the sites you mention don’t work for this purpose.
Rob Berick on June 24, 2010
Point taken - and it’s a really good one. Obviously, this really hinges on whether or not you can remember the ticker symbol of the company. And I was just commenting that I enjoy the fact that some companies have made the effort to make unique and memorable ticker symbols (Also, for the record, OMG was OMG long before there was OMG).
Rob Berick on August 29, 2011
Interestingly enough… seems I’m not the only one thinking about this… Mark Cussen at the SF Chronicle came up with some good ones!
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/08/24/investopedia58875.DTL
Leave a Comment
About rob
Position:Senior Managing Director
Rob oversees Dix & Eaton’s investor relations practice and is a member of the firm’s Leadership Committee. Over his nearly 20-year career, he has developed and executed investor relations programs for companies in a wide range of industries and market cap sizes.
Latest Tweets
@theofrancis No doubt about it re: "resounding defeat" Wont be too far off that we're surprised when one passes I suspect.
May 21, 2012 12:46
Should we be surprised by such votes still? MT @theofrancis: Another #SOP defeat: Simon Property Group w/ 73% against http://t.co/9BQIysCn
May 21, 2012 10:00
@greenfaucet they are [not] saying the same things about me... spam is truly out of control.
May 21, 2012 9:32
Calendar
| May 2012 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
| 29 | 30 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 1 | 2 |
Recent Entries
Links
- Boards At Their Best
- Corporate Governance Leaders
- Deal Breaker
- Dealflow
- FEI Financial Reporting Blog
- Idea Transplant
- Inside IPO
- Investor Relations Musings
- IR Café
- IR Web Report
- IR/PR Today
- Q4 Web Systems Blog
- Risk and Governance Blog
- Robert A. G. Monks
- ScudderMedia
- Securities News Watch
- The Shareholder Activist
- TheCorporateCounsel.net Blog
- Transparency Matters
- WCW Insight
Rob,
I like to blog post. Three companies that I have always thought had clever tickers were LIFE, BID and BABY
Dan