The share price of Tweeter, a formerly insolvent home-electronics retailer, rallied an eye-popping 2,200 per cent on Friday after traders apparently mistook it for Twitter.
Tweeter’s stock, which was below 1 penny, peaked at 15 cents after social-media phenomenon Twitter released its prospectus in advance of a much-anticipated initial public offering (IPO) of its stock.
The similarity of the companies’ ticker symbols apparently contributed to the mistake. While Twitter will use the symbol TWTR after its IPO, Tweeter uses TWTRQ.
Tweeter trading was suspended under a rule that applies to stocks traded over the counter (OTC).
“An extraordinary event has occurred or is ongoing that has had a material effect on the market,” the OTC notice said, according to Bloomberg.
Globally popular microblog service Twitter plans to begin selling stock soon in hopes of raising 1 billion dollars. Its prospectus claims the value of the company is $12.8 billion.
The IPO is expected to take place in November.