What Is a Stock Market Symbol?
Each publicly traded stock and mutual fund has a symbol it is known by, consisting of anywhere between one and five letters. This is its stock market symbol, or ticker symbol. It serves as a universal identifier as well as a convenient shorthand for noting price movements and transactions. A stock market symbol can be thought of as the equivalent of an element’s symbol on the periodic table. In the United States, stock market symbols consist of only letters, with the occasional period before the last letter, such as in the symbol BRK.B, which indicates a class B share of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. A stock market symbol will vary slightly based on the exchange that the stock is traded on. For example, most of the stocks traded on the NASDAQ exchange have four or five letters, while most of those on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) have three letters. NYSE ticker symbols can also be two letters, or just one. One-letter stock market symbols are sought after, to some extent, by publicly tr
