What Is a Stock Ticker?
A ticker is the short code that names a stock on the market. AAPL means Apple. KO means Coca-Cola. You type the ticker to look up a company or buy its shares.
What a ticker symbol means
Company names are long and can be confusing. Tickers are short and unique on each exchange, so there is no mix-up. The name comes from old ticker-tape machines that printed prices on paper strips.
What does a ticker look like?
Most US tickers are one to five letters. Ford is just F. Some tickers are fun: Harley-Davidson is HOG. Outside the US, tickers can be numbers. Many Hong Kong and Japanese companies use number codes.
Some companies have two share classes with two tickers. Alphabet, Google's parent, has GOOGL and GOOG.
How to find a company's ticker
Search the company name plus "stock" or "ticker". Or type it into the box at the top of this page. Stooocks finds the right company and explains what it does.
Same company, different tickers
A company listed on two stock exchanges can have a different ticker on each. Always check the exchange, not just the letters. A similar ticker can belong to a totally different company.
See it in real companies
Open a company to see what it sells and how it makes money.