All About Ticker Symbols

Before you can receive a quote for a stock or a mutual fund, you must know its ticker symbol.

New York Stock Exchange

Stocks on the NYSE use 1 to 3 character ticker symbols. For example, General Motors is 'GM', AT&T is 'T', and IBM is 'IBM'. You can enter the symbol in either upper or lower case.

Most stocks traded on the NYSE are also traded on five smaller exchanges from around the country. To ensure a close-price-quote for the composite of all the exchanges, enter the symbol followed by -Y. This price may change in the hours following each exchange's close, due to processing of trades from each exchange.

To get a quote for a stock on a particular exchange, you have to add the one character code for the exchange you are interested in. For example, to get IBM on the Boston Exchange, you would enter IBM-B. Note the hyphen between the normal ticker symbol and the letter 'B'.

The codes for the five regional exchanges are as follows:

Boston: B
Chicago (Midwest): M
Cincinnati: C
Pacific: P
Philadelphia: X

To get a quote on preferred stocks, you need to add the number 1 immediately following the symbol (no space), and sometimes the letter for the preferred issue. For example, 'Bank of America Preferred F' symbol is BAC1F. Preferred stocks are usually only traded in New York, but sometimes you can append the city code and come up with a valid symbol. For example, 'CHI1.B' is the preferred stock symbol for Furrs Bishop on the Boston exchange only. CHI1 is the composite symbol.

To get a quote for the warrant you add the number '2' to the base symbol. For example, 'Berkshire Rlty Inc WT 09-08-2006 is BRI2.


American Stock Exchange

Symbols for the AMEX follow the same rules as the NYSE.


NASDAQ National Market Issues

All symbols on the NASDAQ start with a four character base. For example: Microsoft is MSFT, and Intel is INTC.

After the four character base can come an optional one character modifier. A complete listing of these codes can be found in The Wall Street Journal. Some of the more frequent codes are:

C -- exempt from NASDAQ listing qualifications for a limited period.
E -- delinquent in required filings with SEC.
P -- first preferred.
Q -- in bankruptcy proceedings.
R -- rights.
W -- warrants.
Y -- American Depository receipt (ADR)



Mutual and Money Market Funds

Mutual Funds are always five characters with the fifth character being X. For example, the Fidelity Magellan Fund's symbol is FMAGX.

Money Market Funds are always five characters with the fiurth and fifth characters being X. For example, the Vanguard Prime Money Market Fund's symbol is VMMXX.


Canadian Markets

Canadian markets are all prefaced by a one character exchange code followed by a period, then the normal symbol. The codes are V, for the Vancouver Stock Exchange; M, for he Montreal Stock Exchange; T, for the Totonto Stock Exchange; C, for the Alberta Stock Exchange; and O, for the Toronto COATS market.

All Canadian symbols are 1 to 3 characters long, except for the COATS market which are always four characters long. Many Canadian symbols have the suffix, .A or .B appended to them to designate class A or class B issues. For example: Bombadier Class B on the Toronto exchange is T.BBD.B.

Warrants have the code .WT appended to the end.

Rights have the code .RT appended to the end.

Units have the code .UN appended to the end.

The Wall Street Journal is one of the few papers that still list the symbol along with an abbreviated description. It's also a good place to look if you want to know if a particular stock has preferred or warrant issues.

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