

Naturally, you'll want to double-check that you have the right ticker symbol before making a financial transaction. You can find the symbols for a fund by looking at the fund manager's website or by looking at lists of funds provided by financial news sites or brokers. To distinguish them from ordinary stock market ticker symbols, those symbols for ETFs generally end in the letter " X." Funds with symbols that end in a double X are usually money-market funds, which invest in short-term debt. You can also type them into stock brokerage websites to buy and sell shares in the fund. For funds called exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, you can generally type these symbols into a financial news or information site to see data about the fund, such as past performance numbers. One way to do this is to use ticker symbols, similar to those that designate stocks, to select the funds that you want to invest in.

If you accidentally put money in the wrong fund, that could prove to be a costly mistake. If you go to put money in a mutual fund or another investment, you want to make sure that you and the financial institutions you're doing business with are on the same page about what it is you're looking to invest in. For other funds, look up internal symbols through the fund manager or find the symbols called CUSIPs through online listings. For exchange-traded funds, find ticker symbols through fund manager literature or financial news and information sites.
