Stock Trading and Other Things

Is it better to dump a stock if the stock symbol ticker changes?

Public Comments

1. Only if it is delisted (if you still can)
Otherwise - review the fundamentals. Has anything changed? If not - why dump?

You didn't say what kind of change.

2. I agree with the other poster: you dump a stock when it no longer is a viable investment for you. A stock symbol change is irrelevant to the value. When Sprint and Nextel merged, Nextel's symbol changed to "S". Symbol changes happen frequently in the investment world.

3. If the company simply changes its ticker symbol--for example Harley Davidson changed theirs from HDI to the far more appropriate HOG last year--or if a company changes its name and its ticker symbol to go along with it--Federated Department stores renamed itself Macys and changed its symbol from FD to M--then this isn't something you should worry about.

On the other hand if you notice an OB or a PK tacked onto the end of a ticker symbol this indicates that the stocks trade over the counter or on the pink sheets, not the major markets and you should tread very carefully if you're thinking of buying. If you own a stock that has the symbol tacked onto it then chances are you've probably already lost a lot of money, but this certainly doesn't qualify as a vote of confidence from the markets.

4. If it changes to five letters it may be a good idea to get rid of it. Such as the last letter being E or Q. E means they're delinquint in SEC filings. And Q means they're in bankruptcy. If it starts lookng like the entire alphabet it may be a good idea. Otherwise sometimes they just change to stand out more or other benign reason.

5. If the only thing that's changed is the symbol.... NO!.

Delisted.... yes.... 99.99% of the times.