What is a stock symbol and how do I find the symbol for a company?

What is a Stock Symbol?
A stock symbol is a series of letters assigned to a particular stock (or security). This series of letters helps to differentiate stocks from one another when trading. Stocks listed in the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange both have three letters or less. Stocks listen on the Nasdaq have four or five letters. The term "ticker symbol" is commonly used interchangeably with the term "stock symbol" but technically the stock symbol is a type of ticker symbol.

The Fifth Letter
If there is a fifth letter in the stock symbol it signifies that the stock is something other than typical common stock. For example, if the stock symbol has an "E" as the fifth letter this indicates previous problems with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the government entity commissioned to regulate the securities in the stock market and to protect investors). Mutual funds are differentiated from other types of securities and carry an "X" at the end of their stock symbol. The letter "D" as the fifth letter in a stock symbol indicates a stock split. A stock split is happens when a company is going through a re-organizational period. Because the nature of a stock split is temporary so is the "D" is only stays as the fifth letter for 20 days. Of course, it would take a while to explain all of the different kinds of ways the fifth letter of a stock symbol is used.

The Stock Symbol and the Ticker Tape
The ticker tape is the scrolling information usually found at the bottom of stock television networks. The ticker tape shows real time changes in the stock market. The ticker tape was originally just a strip of paper that constantly printed out the changes made in the stock market. Today there is no actual "tape" but the concept of the ticker tape remains. A ticker symbol reads as the following (from left to right):

Ticker Symbol, Shares Traded, Price the Shares Were Traded at, (triangle) Direction change, Change Amount (dollar difference)

Different colors have different meanings. For example, green lettering indicates that the price of stock is being sold for a higher price than it closed at the previous day. Red lettering means that the price of stock is being sold for a lower price than it closed at the previous day. Blue or white lettering indicates that there has been no change in the selling price of that stock since it closed the day before.

Finding Company Symbols
Understanding company symbols is easier for some companies than for others. For example, I bet you can guess that the ticker symbol "MSFT" is for the company Microsoft. However, not all stock symbols are so easy to identify. Below are the three most common ways that investors can find the symbols for specific companies:

• Broker - Most people invest through some sort of brokerage firm (usually an on-line discount broker). These brokerages typically provide their account holders with access to search company information and find stock symbols through electronic searches.


• Internet - If you so not have a broker. There are a number of free web-sites that offer company stock symbol search engines. One good suggestion for stock symbol information is at www.investopedia.com.


• Publications - If you do not have access to electronic searches, you can find printed information about company stock symbols through brokers or through the company's themselves. The only disadvantage to published lists is that they may not contain the most up-to-date information about companies that have just introduced their stock to the market. You miss out on the benefits of real-time information.