what is a stock ticker symbol 
a stock symbol or ticker is a unique series of letters assigned to a security for trading purposes stocks listed on the new york stock exchange nyse can have four or fewer letters nasdaq listed securities can have up to five characters symbols are just a shorthand way of describing a company s stock so there is no significant difference between those that have three letters and those that have four or five stock symbols are also known as ticker symbols understanding ticker symbolsin the 1800s when modern stock exchanges came into being floor traders had to communicate the stock price of a traded company by writing or shouting out the name of the company in full as the number of publicly traded companies increased from the dozens to the hundreds they soon realized that this process was time consuming and held up the information queue unable to keep up with frequently changing prices especially after the advent of the stock quoting ticker tape machine in 1867 to be more efficient in relaying price changes on company stock to investors company names were shortened to one to five alpha symbols today stock tickers still exist but digital displays have replaced paper ticker tape in addition to saving time and capturing a specific stock price at the right time stock symbols are useful when two or more companies have similar monikers for example citigroup c and citizens financial group cfg have similar names although they are not affiliated with each other citigroup is a global bank and citizens financial group is a bank holding company for citizens bank both firms trade on the nyse with citigroup trading under the ticker c and citizens financial group under cfg there are also companies that are spin offs of the same company and have similar stock symbols in november 2015 hewlett packard split into two separate companies hewlett packard enterprise hpe and hp inc hpq 1hewlett packard enterprise serves as the business service and hardware division and focuses on servers storage networking and security hp inc is the consumer facing computer and printer division and has a smaller market for its products than hpe some companies that trade on the nasdaq with fewer than four letters include meta meta formerly facebook and moneygram international mgi however companies moving from the nyse to nasdaq can retain their stock symbols 2types of ticker symbolsif the company has more than one class of shares trading in the market then it will have the class added to its suffix if it is a preferred stock the letters pr and the letter denoting the class will typically be added for example a fictional preferred stock called cory s tequila corporate preferred a shares would have a symbol such as ctc pr a different sources quote preferred shares in slightly different ways some stock symbols indicate whether the shares of a company have voting rights especially if the company has more than one class of shares trading in the market for example alphabet inc formerly google has two classes of shares trading on the nasdaq with stock symbols goog and googl common shareholders of goog have no voting rights since goog shares are class c shares while googl shares are class a shares and have one vote each for example berkshire hathaway has two classes of shares trading on the nyse class a and class b class a shares are listed with stock symbol brk a and class b shares which have lower voting rights than class a trade with the symbol brk b other types of ticker sumbols include those designated for mutual funds or options listed on stocks stock symbols are also used to convey information to investors about the trading status of a company or its shares this information is usually represented on the nyse by one letter following a dot after the stock s standard company symbol on the nasdaq a fifth letter is added to stocks that are delinquent in certain exchange requirements for example with acerw the first four letters comprised the stock symbol for acer therapeutics inc acer and the last letter w indicated that the shares had warrants attached a company that is in bankruptcy proceedings will have the q after its symbol and a non u s company trading in the u s financial markets will have the letter y following its ticker symbol the meaning of the letters from a to z are some trading platforms news and market data services may also use ticker modifiers unique to their service an example is a broker who uses an xd footnote or suffix to indicate a stock is trading ex dividend companies trading on the nyse typically have three or fewer letters although they can have four representing their stock symbols nasdaq firms generally have four or five letter symbols e g adobe inc adbe apple inc aapl and groupon inc grpn history of ticker symbolsthe ticker symbol was invented by edward calahan a telegraph operator who worked for the new york stock exchange nyse calahan developed the ticker symbol in 1867 as a way to quickly and accurately transmit stock prices over telegraph lines 3 calahan s ticker symbol consisted of two letters representing the company s name followed by a number representing the number of shares being traded the ticker symbol was transmitted via telegraph and displayed on tickertape machines which were used to keep track of stock prices in near real time calahan s invention revolutionized the way stock prices were reported and helped to make the stock market more efficient and transparent today ticker symbols are used by most major stock exchanges around the world and are an important part of the financial industry the first ticker symbol was used by the new york stock exchange nyse on november 15 1867 to identify the shares of the union pacific railroad company 3 the ticker symbol consisted of two letters up followed by a number representing the number of shares being traded as the number of publicly traded companies and securities increased the nyse expanded the use of ticker symbols to include three letters in the 1920s and four letters in the 1950s today ticker symbols are used by most major stock exchanges around the world and consist of up to five letters in addition to identifying specific securities ticker symbols have also become an important part of financial branding and marketing many companies choose ticker symbols that are easy to remember or have some connection to their business or brand 