While researching investment choices for my new I’m-trying-to-be-a-responsible-adult Roth IRA, I eventually grew impatient with analyst predictions and just started searching for interesting ticker symbols. Since Pdpalladium is my favorite metal, it stands to reason that I should own a stock named PD. Unfortunately, that stock symbol doesn’t exist. However, it turns out that over half of the element symbols on the periodic table do double as ticker symbols on US exchanges (NYSE or NASDAQ).
So here I present a brand new investment strategy that Warren Buffett completely overlooked! If so inclined and financially enabled, one could collect the entire periodic table of stocks – talk about a diverse portfolio! Click the image for a larger view.
The Highlights:
Though not all elements are represented, you can own the basics of organic chemistry – C, H, N, and O – by buying Hyatt Hotels, Citigroup, Netsuite, and Realty Income Corporation. So if you wanted to own glucosea sugar, C6H12O6, you could buy six shares of Citigroup, twelve shares of Hyatt, and six shares of Realty.
Only the stocks in group 11 (CuCopper, or First Trust ISE Global Copper Index Fund, AgSilver, or First Majestic Silver Corp., AuGold, or AngloGold Ashanti Limited) were named intentionally to match an element symbol.
Disclaimer: I am NOT a financial advisor. And I actually haven’t bought any of these stocks. Except fluorine.
Awesome!
This is cool. Thanks for all your work.
You might be interested in PAL which does palladium mining in Canada, especially since Pd is your Pal. 🙂
Neat!
Any trends in the activity of the shares? Are the noble gas stocks very stable? Do the Group I stocks react violently with water?
Hmmm maybe someone more familiar with the market than me would be able to pick out trends…. perhaps in volatility, as that is a term used both in chemistry and stocks?
I’d like to encourage the Namers of Stocks (do companies pick their own names? not sure how that’s done…) to really try to utilize the rest of the table. I mean, come on people. There are unclaimed symbols that are single letters! Phosphorus, iodine, uranium…? Doesn’t anyone want these guys?
I did a search on “single-letter stock symbols” and turned up the following article ( http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/03/markets/ticker_symbols/ ). Single-letter symbols are only issued by NYSE, and the article mentions that they’ve been holding onto “I” and “M” in case Intel and Microsoft ever leave NASDAQ. Also, it looks like single-letter symbols aren’t as useful, now that we’ve evolved past the ticker tape.
Eric, that is fascinating stock trivia! That’s so sweet of NYSE to save spots for those tech behemoths, and that explains why no one else can have iodine.
Yeah, I guess with everything on personal computers now, it makes sense that symbol conciseness is less of a concern. But one letter is still easier to remember than a series of letters, so I would think they’d still be attractive to somebody.
Anyway, thanks for the excellent research.
Right idea, but why don’t we try to just buy stocks that support every box of the real Periodic Table. Example: “Au” figures out which stocks go up and down as the price of gold goes up and down. Buy those stocks or an ETF which supports those stocks.
When the complete Periodic Table is purchased you will have a very interesting portfolio which should allow you to make good investment choices. Let me know if someone is already doing this or let start doing this!