Letters used to uniquely identify a stock or mutual fund.
Symbols with up to three letters are used for stocks which are listed and trade on an exchange.
Symbols with four or five letters are used for NASDAQ stocks.
Symbols with five letters ending in X are used for mutual funds.
For example, GE is the ticker symbol for General Electric stock, MSFT is the symbol for Microsoft, and NTCHX is the symbol for the Northern Funds Technology mutual fund.
