Tweeter Home Entertainment Group has gotten a new stock ticker thanks to all of the confusion surrounding Twitter Inc (TWTR)’s initial public offering. The bankrupt retailer’s previous stock ticker symbol was TWTRQ, and its shares soared more than a thousand percent on Friday as confused investors pumped their money into the penny stock, thinking that it was Twitter.
Tweeter shifts to THEGQ
Tweeter Home Entertainment Group resumed trading today using the symbol THEGQ. Trading volume on the company’s stock also skyrocketed on Friday along with its share price, climbing to 14.4 million shares, compared to the daily average of approximately 29,000 shares, as recorded by FactSet.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority halted trading on Tweeter Friday because of the confusion with Twitter Inc (TWTR). The regulator then decided to change the company’s ticker symbol, although last week’s trades will still stand. Officials said they would notify the markets if those trades end up being canceled.
When is Twitter’s IPO?
It’s because anticipation for the micro-blogging site’s IPO is so high that all the confusion with Tweeter happened. Investors who are interested in buying Twitter will have to keep waiting. The company has not yet announced when it will actually go public, although some speculate that it could happen before Thanksgiving.
The fact that Twitter just made public its application for an IPO makes it especially interesting that so many investors were fooled into thinking that the IPO was already happening. We don’t even know the date of Twitter’s IPO or even, officially, which exchange it will be on, although reports have suggested it will be the New York Stock Exchange.
At this point Twitter has about 218 million users, which is far fewer than Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), which is now at more than a billion users. But Twitter is rapidly rising in popularity, especially as it becomes the favorite outlet for big names like hedge fund billionaire Carl Icahn or Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk to make big announcements.
