Have You Ever Bought the Wrong Stock?

On Oct 4, 2013, Twitter announced that its ticker symbol after it went public would be TWTR.

But some investors were so eager to own Twitter, that they started buying the ticker TWTRQ, a penny stock, apparently mistaking it for Twitter even though it hadn't yet gone public.

TWTRQ was actually Tweeter Home Entertainment Group and it traded over-the-counter. The volume and price of TWTRQ soared. At one point, it traded up over 1000% before closing on the day up 659%.

Regulators were so concerned about investors mistakenly buying the wrong company, that Tweeter actually changed its ticker symbol shortly after to THEGQ.

But that wasn't the last time investors have bought the "wrong" stock.

Just this week, after Google announced it was acquiring Nest for $3.2 billion, shares of Nestor, with the ticker (you guessed it) of NEST, soared from less than a penny to 10 cents before closing at 4 cents.

Unfortunately for those investors, the "Nest" Google was acquiring was privately owned. Nestor, which jumped, had nothing to do with the deal.

But it's not just new tickers and acquisitions that can cause mistakes.

Over the last month, there have also been jokes on social media that the recent surge in Potash shares, ticker POT, could be the case of mistaken identity with one of the popular marijuana stocks, Growlife, ticker PHOT.

Have you ever bought the wrong stock by mistake?

Read the analyst report on TWTR

Read the analyst report on POT

Read the analyst report on PHOT

Read the analyst report on GOOG


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