A transcript follows the video.
This podcast was recorded on July 20, 2016.
David Gardner: And, admittedly, we might already be into the ridiculous, but now we are very self-consciously going into the ridiculous to close. Investors: You're out there on the internet. You're using Twitter. I hope you're using the Motley Fool discussion boards. You're talking about Apple. You're using the ticker symbol -- I know some of you know where I'm headed with this -- and you're typing APPL.
APPL is not the ticker symbol for Apple. I know you know this because you're intelligent. You're listening to Rule Breaker Investing. You already know this, but a lot of other people out there don't. The ticker symbol for Apple has always been -- admittedly it's maybe not a great ticker symbol -- AAPL, not APPL.
It would be hilarious, wouldn't it, if there were actually a company that did have the ticker symbol APPL. Looking it up right now, I notice there is no such company. There is no company with the ticker symbol APPL.
If I were IPO'ing my company today -- regardless of my industry affiliation, or the actual state or purpose of my business, or the name of my company -- I would choose the ticker symbol APPL. I'm thinking maybe one in 10, or one in 20, people would be buying my stock, instead of what they meant to buy, which was Apple, and that probably pushes up my market capitalization by somewhere around 10% higher than it should actually be.
Now perhaps APPL does not exist for this very reason. Perhaps that ticker symbol has been banned from the Nasdaq. I don't know. I know I have a lot of smart listeners, so if you know anything about the background of that, let us know. We can talk about it on Mailbag. But I know this: The ticker symbol for Apple is not APPL.
Before we move on to the next one, an honorable mention to Apple Hospitality REIT, a real estate investment trust, because its ticker symbol is APLE, which I think is a better shot at the word Apple than what Apple uses.
