LOOK AT THIS!
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.AZNT IS GOING TO SUE AMAZON RIGHT?....THIS CONFIRMS THEIR CLAIM!
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. Investors suffer from a bit of VERT-igo
Ticker symbol confusion lifts bulletin board stock's price
By Darren Chervitz, CBS MarketWatch
Last Update: 3:18 PM ET Feb 9, 1999 Silicon Stocks
Software Report
NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- VerticalNet is expected to attract strong demand when the
Web site publisher begins trading Wednesday, but a small California company is
already benefiting from all the excitement.
Shares of Vertica Software (VERT-BB), an Emeryville-based technology
consultant, rose 1 1/4 to 5 1/4 Tuesday. Apparently, investors are placing
orders to buy VerticalNet, which is expected to trade under the ticker symbol
"VERT," not realizing that Vertica Software began trading under that same
symbol in late January at about one dollar a share.
Executives at Vertica Software could not be reached for comment. Tom Armstrong,
counsel for Vertica, contacted CBS.MarketWatch.com and said the company was
asked by Nasdaq to give up its ticker symbol this morning.
Understandably, Armstrong said the company is upset about having to give up a
ticker symbol only a few weeks after receiving it. "They [Nasdaq] just kind of
muscle you, even though we did everything correct and got the symbol first,"
said Amrstrong, who works at the Oakland, Calif.-based law firm Bay Venture
Counsel.
Vertica is "considering its options," he added.
Vertica trades on the over-the-counter bulletin board, an exchange operated but
not regulated by the Nasdaq Stock Market. VerticalNet is expected to begin
trading Wednesday on the more widely-known Nasdaq National Market.
While some quotation services, such as Data Broadcasting, tack on a "-BB" at
the end of the ticker for a bulletin board stock to denote the difference, many
others don't, including most online brokers. Thus, investors who put in an
order to buy 100 shares of VERT expecting to get VerticalNet on E-Trade would
get shares in Vertica instead.
Similar situations have occurred in the past. When Amazon.com (AMZN) went
public in 1997, a company called Amazon Natural Treasures with the "AMZN"
ticker symbol saw its stock nearly tripled.
As is likely to happen in this case, the bulletin board company must give up
its ticker symbol a day before the bigger company goes public on the Nasdaq
National and Small-Cap markets. Amazon Natural Treasures (AZNT-BB), for
instance, now trades under "AZNT" for less than a buck.
Wayne Lee, a Nasdaq spokesman, said the exchange had a call in trying to find
out when VerticalNet is to begin trading. He could not comment on why Vertica
was allowed to get the VERT ticker symbol after VerticalNet had filed for an
IPO.
While Vertica's stock is benefiting from the confusion now, the story is not
likely to have a happy ending.
Take the case of Temco Services (TMCO-BB), a building maintenance and security
services company trading on the bulletin board market under the "TMCO" ticker.
Last December, a news story on the Ticketmaster Online CitySearch (TMCS) IPO
went out with Temco's symbol instead of the correct TMCS.
Temco's stock temporarily went from the 20s to the mid-60s on much
heavier-than-average volume. The stock quickly fell back to the 20s, and it
remains there today. |
