So, in the final study, the researchers looked at the pronounceability of companies’ three-letter stock ticker codes. Some, such as KAR for KAR Global, are pronounceable as words, while others, such as HPQ for Hewlett-Packard, are not. Surprisingly, the companies whose ticker codes were pronounceable performed significantly better on both the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange than companies with unpronounceable, disfluent codes. The relative fluency of their ticker codes should have absolutely nothing to do with their qualities as companies—it is completely arbitrary—but
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