Q06: How to enter SBC acquiring AT&T?

In the interest of accuracy, which we all seem to appreciate, it's "John Pollard," not "John Pollack." That's a D, not a K. (I hope no one takes offense at my suggesting the correction. John P. contributes so much here that we ought to at least get his name right.)

John B.

But presumably, mutual fund symbols (5 character symbols) are not available to NYSE companies; so that much more severely limits the opportunities for NYSE companies to avoid duplicating symbols ... down from your 10 million to under 19,000.

Oh my! My sincerest apologies.

I, too, have benefitted from many of John POLLARD's posts over the years.

I used to play table tennis with a guy named John Pollack and, well, you know how confused we old timers can get.

Thanks, for the correction.

Jerry

Do I ever!!!

John B.

John,

I understood that, but I didn't state it very clearly did I?

And R.C.'s explanation of how to do the merger indicates that reuse of ticker symbols isn't a problem as long as the symbol name change is applied at the correct point in time. I assume that Quicken will handle this historical price merge correctly if you choose "Default" when you change the symbol using Edit Security Detail.

And my sincerest apologies for getting your name wrong (innumerable times!). I played table tennis with a guy named John Pollack and had often wondered if you and he were the same person. Now I think I know the answer to that question :-)

Jerry

I could tell. You've even spelled your *own* name wrong. In English it's "i" before "e" except after "c" (as in "Albert Ienstien").

Jerry - I think you're right in that I was wrong, but I am not sure you realize why I was wrong. (Glad I posted that second note indicating it could have been me!).

My math did indeed allow A as a symbol, but excluded AA and AAA as possibilities. Why? Because I was using the EXCEL spreadsheet formular for PERMUTATIONS as mentioned. In Permutations, once you take an element out of the 'pool', you don't have it to be avaiable for the next selection. So in the case of two characters, for example, once 'A' is used, it can't be allowed for the second character in a permutation. That's why my two character example came up exactly 26 shy of yout math. 'AA', 'BB', 'CC', etc. are valid permutations for 26 letters taken two at a time.

Now this interesting. In PERMUTATIONS, order doesn't matter. In COMBINATIONS, order does. But this case of allowing the SAME character to be used if already chosen earlier I don't know the name for in terms of a mathematical function. I'll have to check one of my math friends if it even exists!

Gee, maybe we invented something here! :-)

Damn it! That's what got me in trouble the first time. 'AA' , 'BB', 'CC', etc. are NOT valid permutations of 26 letters taken two a time. It *is* a valid 2 character stock symbol. I must be having a serious mental moment.

As far as the math function being invented is concerned, maybe that's simply a "multiplication product",

Andrew,

You're right, you did allow for A. I should have stated that your method doesn't allow any letter to be repeated in a ticker symbol, e.g. ABA isn't allowed.

I believe the method you used is called "Sampling without replacement" and RC's method is called "Sampling with replacement". Sadly, we have not invented anything new.

Glad I was right about this because I've been wrong about a lot of other things in this thread. You can join me in the egg-on-your-face club ::-)

Jerry

My real problem is I jumped on the mathematical function without really thinking about the applicability of it in this particular circumstance where doubles or triples of the same element was allowed. Clearly, it's not a permutation or combination - I was wrong in thinking it was.

I was tongue in cheek about inventing something new, of course. Too simple for others not to have figured this out centuries ago!

Hi, Jerry.

Wow! This little digression turned into much more subthread than I anticipated. :^}

My method of figuring out how many symbols are possible under NYSE rules did not involve any of the algebra or other stuff that I learned (and mostly forgot) so long ago. I simply figured there are 26 (max) one-letter symbols, 26 * 26 (676) two-letter possibilities and 26 * 26 * 26 (17,576) possible 3-letter combos - then added 'em up. Never had to use the word "permutations" even once. ; And R.C.'s explanation of how to do the merger indicates that reuse of

"Step transactions" are common in tax planning. Even though the various steps of the complex transaction may happen simultaneously or so close together that it's hard to tell which happened first, any good planning team will structure it so that the steps are legally considered to have happened in the precise sequence required to accomplish the desired end result. Sometimes, the story as told in the press glosses over the technicalities. That's why it's important to get the official explanation of each step and its precise place in the sequence. And then to record the steps just that way!

(Sort of like when I'm helping my wife read a recipe. "One cup of nuts, chopped", is NOT always the same as "one cup of chopped nuts" - and sometimes the difference makes a difference.)

RC

Oh oh - I got to ask, why isn't it? The former implies one buys a cup of nuts then chops them oneself (maybe at this point, it's less volume than the second?), and the latter implies one cut of nuts already chopped. Either way, you end up with chopped nuts, more or less a cup full.

What's the difference (beside, perhaps my parenthetical point, about volume).

Hi RC,

I'll say! But why stop now when we're having so much fun :-)

And I used to know the answer, but it was a long time ago. Please refresh my memory.

"Chopped nut lover" (from another post in this thread) ??? Geez- I don't even cook! (I got married to avoid having to do that a long ago) I was just wondering about the difference in the recipe that R.C. threw out.

The question that Jerry wrote was written up in a math journal just a short time ago. Try to think of the answer, and when you feel you've given it a go, check it out at

You already noted the difference: a cup of unchopped nuts will produce less chopped nuts than a cup of already chopped nuts. A cook would understand the significance of that, perhaps in a way that a mathematcian would not. :)

And I really did know how to spell mathemetician but lazy fingers got in the way.

mathematcian? mathemetician??

Maybe a third time will be a charm, John?! :-)

To make matters worse: I wanted to verify my spelling the second time so I looked up the word in an online dictionary. Then I thought I could insure no typo by doing a copy/paste from the dictionary ... and I thougth that was what I did. So if I can't type it correctly and I can't copy/paste it correctly, I think I will just punt on that third try. :)