Letter Imperfect
On Friday, Citigroup joins an elite list of New York Stock Exchange companies with single-letter ticker symbols. Or is it so elite? “This is really the Rolls-Royce of the ticker symbol,” Patrick Healy of the Issuer Network, which advises companies on exchange listings, told Bloomberg News. But many of these stocks have performed like Edsels. An evenly weighted portfolio of all 21 stocks has lost 2.5% over the last 12 months, according to The Times’ calculations. But the glass-is-half-full crowd will note that the list’s biggest blue chips have fared far better, gaining nearly 17% on average. The tickers Q and V are missing because the shares of those companies have been delisted or trade on foreign exchanges, and the NYSE is saving M and I for Nasdaq’s stars: Microsoft and Intel. (What--Cisco isn’t good enough?) Citigroup, the nation’s biggest financial services company, was formed by the Citicorp-Travelers Group merger. The company, which has been using CCI, is getting the C designation from Chrysler, which merged with Daimler-Benz after using the symbol for 50 years.
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A Look at the A-to-Z Portfolio
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Ticker Wednesday 12-month Company symbol Industry close return Astra* A Drugs $18.31 +5.2% Barnes Group B Manufacturing 30.88 +19.6 Dominion Resources D Utilities 46.50 +28.3 ENI* E Oil and gas 60.00 +9.7 Ford Motor F Autos 56.44 +99.8 Gillette G Consumer goods 45.00 --1.2 Harcourt General H Publishing/retail 49.19 --7.9 Jackpot Enterprises J Gambling 9.50 --17.3 Kellogg K Food 36.38 --21.4 Liberty Financial L Asset management 28.88 --18.7 Inco Ltd. N Mining 11.75 --37.8 Realty Income O Real estate 24.31 --2.7 Phillips Petroleum P Energy 42.13 --8.7 Ryder System R Transportation 27.75 --17.1 Sears S Retail 43.00 --8.3 AT&T; T Communications 62.31 +15.7 US Airways U Transportation 55.00 --5.2 Westvaco W Paper products 27.81 --10.8 USX-U.S. Steel X Steel 23.00 --22.9 Alleghany Y Title insurance 188.44 +15.2 Venator Group Z Specialty retail 7.31 --66.3 S&P; 500 SPX 1,171.25 +19.9
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*American depositary receipts
Source: Bloomberg News
