Silly Moves… The Knot’s Name, Exchange, and Ticker Change (KNOT, XOXO)

Companies sometimes make moves that spook investors, even if the intent is to signal something else entirely.  Today marked the change where The Knot Inc. (NASDAQ: KNOT) changed to XO Group Inc. (NYSE: XOXO).  In short, the change was all around from exchange to ticker to its company name.  We are still going to refer to this one “The Knot” because that is how investors have known the company for years now.  The Knot is a media outfit devoted entirely to “weddings, nesting and babies.”

The company was present today for the opening bell.  Speaking of which, why do companies still want the four-letter stock tickers if they are moving to The Big Board?  It is just one more issue that can confuse retail investors (and some institutional investors).

At issue is that many quote systems and analytic systems take days or even weeks to properly transfer over.  Fundamentally, this changes nothing about the company.  It still has a high P/E ratio and it can still be a volatile stock.  Some companies believe that this takes the day traders out of their shares and puts the power of control more into the hands of specialists (or dedicated market makers).  We have seen arguments for and against this throughout time.

Shares are up 0.7% at $9.62 this morning with almost 200,000 shares traded in the first hour.  The DJIA is up 0.99% and the NASDAQ is up 1.01%.

As of 10:30 AM EST TheKnot.com’s homepage still reflected the KNOT data unless you go to the investor relations site for an explanation about the move.

JON C. OGG