I was forwarded an interesting study from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which shows that companies with easy-to-pronounce names do better on the stock market.

Sez the NSF:

Researchers have found that companies with easily pronounced names and stock ticker symbols perform better in stock markets in the days following their initial public offering (IPO). The NSF-funded study shows that in the New York Stock Exchange and the American Exchange, stocks with fluent names initially appreciated more in value than did those with more complex names.

Based on this, many of companies recently mentioned as up-and-coming on Michael Harrington’s blog TechCrunch) will be leaving money on the table if they ever get to IPO stage:

• Guruza (expert advice via IM)
• mpire (online shopping analytics)
• zlango (communicate with icons on SMS)
• PeopleAggregator (meta social networking — six syllables!)
• TalkShoe (podcasters get a cut of conference call revenues)
• Külist (price-comparison engine)
• Platial (a “people’s atlas”)

Tags: names, stock prices, obvious

Posted by Antony in: Media + Marketing