The history of the stock ticker and ticker symbols begins with the ticker tape machine invented by Thomas Edison. The original need for symbols no longer exists, but stock tickers are still alive today. There is even a bit of useful information coded into the stock symbol list of today if you know where to look. So here is our version of - all you ever wanted to know about stock market tickers.
Ticker symbols are part of the Wall Street's history, dating back to the 1800's and the telegraph. The original stock ticker tape machines translated the information transmitted over telegraph wires onto tapes that could be read by investors. In order to save bandwidth, company names were assigned one and two letter stock tickers or symbols. The most actively traded companies were assigned a single letter stock symbol.
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Stock tickers are unique for each company, regardless of the stock market or exchange on which they trade. If you see a company with a one or two letter stock symbol, that company is trading on the NYSE. That's because the NYSE is the oldest stock exchange in America and one and two letter symbols were the first to be assigned to companies. If you see three letters, then that company trades on either the NYSE or the AMEX. If the stock symbol is greater than three letters, then the company trades on the NASDAQ.
Today, when we think of stock tickers we've usually got a vision of what are termed "dynamic stock tickers." This technology has its roots with first the first ticker tape projection system installed at the New York Stock Exchange back in 1923.
Dynamic stock tickers are a traveling two-line display that allows market analysts to see real time stock prices that are retrieved via direct data feeds from a large variety of information providers.
Although bandwidth is no longer a constraint, the stock ticker, or symbol, continues to be used to save space on trading monitors and is a convenient way to accurately identify a particular stock of a company. Here is an example of a ticker you may have seen rolling past the bottom of a television tuned into CNN:
MSFT 10K @ 35.13 ^ 0.05
The first four letters in this example refer to the ticker symbol, in this case MSFT or Microsoft Corporation. The next set of data - 10K - refers to the most recent trade volume being quoted. The numbers after the "at" symbol refer to the price at which the trade occurred, in this example $35.13. The up or down symbol tells us whether the trading price is higher or lower than the previous trading day's closing price. Finally, the last set of numbers refers to the change from the previous day's close.
So translating the above stock ticker, we would read it something like this:
Microsoft Corporation, last trade of 10,000 shares was exchanged at $25.13 which is up by $0.05 from the previous trading day's close.
Companies that trade on the NASDAQ are assigned four letter stock symbols. But sometimes there is a fifth symbol or letter that appears for a particular stock. In the same manner, companies are assigned symbols on the NYSE can have an additional symbol assigned to them "after the dot." For example, PEG.A refers to the company assigned the stock ticker of PEG and the ".A" gives the investor some additional information about this particular stock - it is considered Class A stock.
Mutual funds are always assigned four letters plus an "X" at the end so they are quickly identified by traders. Another symbol that you should be aware of is the notorious "E," which means the company has been delinquent in their filing with the Security and Exchange Commission - not a good sign.
Below appears a complete list of fifth symbols and after the dot letters as well as their meanings:
| A - Class A | K - Non Voting | U - Units |
| B - Class B | L - Miscellaneous Situations | V - When Issued and When Distributed |
| C - Exempt from NASDAQ | M - 4th Class Preferred | W - Warrants |
| D - New Issue | N - 3rd Class Preferred | X - Mutual Fund |
| E - Delinquent with SEC | O - 2nd Class Preferred | Y - ADR (American Depository Receipts) |
| F - Foreign | P - 1st Class Preferred | Z - Miscellaneous Situations |
| G - First Convertible Bond | Q - Bankruptcy in Process | |
| H - 2nd Convertible Bond | R - Rights | |
| I - 3rd Convertible Bond | S - Beneficial Interest | |
| J - Voting | T - Warrants or Rights |
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