With over 1,300 exchange traded fund products on the market, fund providers are always looking for that extra edge to up their competition, from fund engineering to wordsmithing.
Companies have been crafting attention-grabbing ticker symbols that are literal, figurative or enticing, writes Rachel Louise Ensign for The Wall Street Journal. As most three-letter symbols have been spoken for, providers have been permutating four-letters into something vaguely reminiscent of the actual fund’s directive.
“It’s kind of like when you have vanity plates on your car,” Laura Morrison, senior vice president of global index and exchange-traded products at the New York Stock Exchange, said in the article.
With the number of fund products up 108% over the last five years, providers are finding a harder time thinking up sly symbol tickers, Morrison added. Fund providers have also reserved 2,446 symbols for future ETFs, eschewing failed ETFs tickers, and at this rate, six new ones are being picked each day.