Whenever a company prepares for a public offering, executives have been known to spend an inordinate amount of time choosing the combination of letters that will serve as the company’s ticker and often nickname within the investment community. To many, the fixation on selecting the perfect ticker seems like an irrational obsession on par with Patrick Bateman’s affinity for business cards. But there’s some evidence to support the idea that picking a clever ticker can be worth quite a bit of money.

An academic study titled “Would A Stock By Any Other Ticker Smell As Sweet?” (PDF) examined the performance of “clever ticker” stocks such as Southwest (LUV), Internet America (GEEK), Lion Country Safari (GRRR), and Explosive Fabricators (BOOM). This study uncovered that between 1984 and 2004, “a portfolio of clever-ticker stocks would have beaten the market by a substantial and statistically significant margin, contradicting the efficient market hypothesis.” Theories on the reason for this outperformance have been all over the board. Many have written it off as a coincidence, while others posit that a cool ticker is indicative of a more relaxed management team, and perhaps a more creative and productive corporate culture.

BlackRock (BLK), one of the largest money managers in the world, and the owner and manager of the iShares ETF family, pointed out Monday (February 1) that:

The current weakness (with stocks down around 6.5%) is roughly in line with the 5% to 8% declines we saw periodically last year as stocks climbed 60% from their March 2009 lows through year-end. From our perspective, we think it is likely that while the current correction may not yet be over, neither is the cyclical bull market.

In the last 2 weeks the market sold off on both positive and negative news. Many analysts rushed to change market outlooks from uptrend to confirmed downtrend. Is the long-awaited stock market correction finally arriving?

Volatility Is Back