What a bunch of stock twits!
Shares of Tweeter Home Entertainment, a Boston-based consumer electronics chain that filed for bankruptcy in 2007, soared Friday in a case of mistaken identity on Wall Street.
Apparently, some investors confused Tweeter, which trades under the symbol TWTRQ, with Twitter and piled into the penny stock.
Tweeter, which trades over the counter, opened at 2 cents a share and jumped as much as 15 cents — or 1,800 percent — before regulators halted trading.
Almost 15 million shares had changed hands at that point, while the average daily volume is closer to 150,000.
By early afternoon, Tweeter was still up almost 700 percent, at 5 cents a share.
Twitter disclosed late Thursday that it will trade as TWTR after it launches a $1 billion initial public offering. Actual trading in the shares won’t be available for a few more weeks.
Regardless, the close resemblance in ticker symbols was enough to throw some less-than-savvy investors for loop.
Google’s TWTRQ stock page probably added to the confusion by listing the company’s name as TWTR Inc. instead of Tweeter, and by linking to stories about Twitter.