Stock ticker symbols have evolved for a very utilitarian purpose: abbreviate company names so their stock price could be most efficiently transmitted over telegraph lines.
To this day, most tickers are simply a mash of letters contained in a company’s name. But some are more interesting, drawing on a company’s history, or using wordplay to represent it on a trading board.
The Dallas-Fort Worth area, as it turns out, is home to a number of companies with unique ticker symbols — and the region’s embrace of “Y’all Street” will likely birth even more in the years to come. Here are 10 of the most noteworthy:
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T – AT&T
AT&T first listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1901, making it the 12th-longest tenured member of the exchange. Its iconic “T” ticker traces back to AT&T predecessor, American Bell Telephone Company, which used the symbol on the Boston Stock Exchange in the late 1800s.
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When ownership of American Bell was transferred to its subsidiary American Telephone & Telegraph Company, the resulting AT&T traded as ATT, until the new company adopted the “T” ticker once more in 1930.
When AT&T Corp., merged with Southwestern Bell, for a few days the joined company traded under “SBC,” until resuming under “T” on Dec. 1, 2005.
This is a 1913 TDMN file photo of inventor Alexander Graham Bell.
J – Jacobs Solutions
Founded in 1948, Jacobs Solutions is a Fortune 500 company based in Dallas that does everything from engineering to construction to maintenance. While the history of its ticker symbol “J” isn’t as well-documented as AT&T’s, it’s notable that North Texas has two single-letter tickers. (After all, there can only be 26).
Texas hosts around 1 in 10 U.S. public companies, and D-FW is responsible for about 30% of Texas’ economy. According to a back-of-the-napkin calculation, that means North Texas likely owns about 3% of the U.S.’s public companies, but approximately 7%, of potential single-letter stock tickers. Now that’s punching above its weight.
LUV – Southwest
While it still uses the red, blue and yellow heart logo, Southwest used to lean into the whole “love” theme even more. The Dallas-based airline was founded in 1971, when love was hip, so early branding used the concept to set it apart from other carriers.
Tickets came from “love machines,” snacks were “love bites,” and drinks were “love potions.” Unrelated, though, is Southwest’s headquarters and hub at Love Field, ― named for Moss L. Love, a U.S. Army pilot who died in 1913.
The logo for Southwest Airlines appears above a trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Richard Drew / AP
CAT – Caterpillar
Caterpillar is the manufacturing giant behind construction, mining and other industrial equipment used across the globe. The origin of this ticker is obvious, but it’s still the ‘CAT’s meow,’ if you ask us.
DOGZ – Dogness International
Technically a Chinese company, Dogness International’s U.S. headquarters is in Plano, so this one counts. And how could it not with a cute ticker like DOGZ?
Dogness, of course, makes pet products. With CAT and DOGZ, D-FW just needs ‘GRBL’ or ‘FISH’ for those who want an easier (pet) stock to take care of in their portfolios.
DINO – HF Sinclair
The name of Dallas oil and gas giant HF Sinclair is a combination of three companies, Holly, Frontier, and Sinclair, that have merged over the years. The resulting company adopted the iconic “dino” branding of Sinclair, the result of a marketing campaign in 1930.
The advertisements promoted Sinclair lubricants as made of oil from 100 million years ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth. The imagery became so popular that Sinclair trademarked its green apatosaurus in 1932, and ran with the branding to this day.
DINO floats have appeared at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, DINO animatronics at the World Fair, and homages to the logo have appeared in movies like Cars and We’re Back.
Spectators watch from an apartment window as the Sinclair’s Dino balloon passes by during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Yuki Iwamura / AP
EAT – Brinker International
You may not have heard of Brinker International but you’ve surely heard of its crown jewels: Chili’s. The casual restaurant is based in Dallas and franchises 1,672 restaurants under the names Chili’s Grill & Bar and Maggiano’s Little Italy worldwide. Let’s EAT, indeed.
ACDC – ProFrac Holding Corp
ProFrac Holding Corp, a Dallas energy company, adopted the “ACDC” ticker symbol in 2022 several months after its IPO. Executive chairman Matt Wilks said in a press release that the ticker was meant to symbolize ProFrac’s leadership in electric hydraulic fracturing, AKA electric fracking, which uses electric pumps and motors instead of diesel-powered one.
FYBR – Frontier Communications
No, Frontier isn’t a cereal brand. They don’t deal in that kind of fiber. The Dallas-based company is a fiber internet provider. This clever ticker symbol may not be long for this world, with a planned merger of Verizon and Frontier in regulatory limbo since late 2024.
If the merger is successful, Verizon could take up the “FYBR” ticker to anoint itself the stock market’s King of Fiber. Then again, its existing “VZ” ticker is pretty recognizable, too.
PLAY – Dave and Busters
If you think about it, Dave and Busters is really just a playground for adults. The Dallas-based ‘eatertainment’ chain has a full restaurant, bar and video arcade at each of its locations, so it’s fitting that when it went public in 2014, it did so under the symbol “PLAY.”
Honorable mentions:
Several are a little too obvious to make the top 10, but it’s always satisfying to see a full word used as a ticker symbol. Sunoco’s “SUN” and Wingstop’s “WING” are examples of that. Farmer Brothers Coffee’s “FARM,” another, feels like buying stock in Old McDonald.
Another great ticker symbol is “FUN,” owned by Six Flags, which is no longer a Texas company. In fact, when it was based in Arlington, it traded as “SIX,” but when it merged with Cedar Fair, the joint company took Six Flags’ name but Cedar Fair’s “FUN” ticker symbol.
Both moved out of their respective homes, though, for a new headquarters in Charlotte, N.C.