America Risks Running Out of Tickers for Single-Stock ETFs
Securing a snappy ticker is a high-stakes mission in the $10 trillion exchange-traded fund arena. For issuers launching funds riding the boom in single stocks – Tesla Inc., Apple Inc. and more – standing out from the crowd is only getting harder by the day.
US exchanges currently allow a four-character limit for tickers, which produces a functionally infinite number of combinations: 456,976, theoretically. However, if you narrow it down to the burgeoning world of single-stock ETFs, the possibilities dwindle dramatically, given that the symbol must be built around an existing ticker — that of the company it’s tracking.