what is q as a ticker symbol 
the letter q used to be part of the ticker symbols for a stock trading on the nasdaq specifying that a particular company was in bankruptcy proceedings if the letter q appeared as the final letter of a nasdaq symbol it meant bankrupt issuer has filed for bankruptcy as the nasdaq put it 1understanding qall companies traded on the nasdaq have four lettered ticker symbols which are representative of the actual company for example apple trades as aapl microsoft as msft and so on however in some cases a ticker symbol on the nasdaq will have five letters and the fifth letter is an identifier symbol that tells market participants something about the company before the system changed nasdaq added a q onto a company s ticker to tell investors the company filed for bankruptcy nasdaq now uses the financial status indicator which marks key issues beyond just bankruptcy filings including a failure to meet nasdaq listing requirements other markets and exchanges may still use q to indicate a bankruptcy filing however 1q is one of two letters that the nasdaq no longer uses as an identifier with the other being e 1each trading day nasdaq publishes a list of companies that in one way or another don t meet the listing standards according to nasdaq a company is added to the list five business days after nasdaq notifies the company about its noncompliance and is removed from the list one business day after nasdaq determines that the company has regained compliance or no longer trades on nasdaq 2investopedia does not provide tax investment or financial services and advice the information is presented without consideration of the investment objectives risk tolerance or financial circumstances of any specific investor and might not be suitable for all investors investing involves risk including the possible loss of principal 