The stock-exchange ticker for Microsoft Corporation is MSFT. Microsoft’s common stock trades on the Nasdaq exchange under that four-letter symbol.
A ticker is a short identifier used to distinguish a publicly traded security in market data, financial news, and trading systems. It is not the same thing as a company’s market capitalization, although the ticker is used to retrieve the price needed to calculate market cap.
Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975. Its major businesses now include cloud computing through Azure, enterprise software, Windows, gaming, productivity products, and professional networking through LinkedIn.
Ticker symbols differ by exchange and security class. Apple uses AAPL, Amazon uses AMZN, and Alphabet uses more than one symbol for different share classes. The symbol MSFT specifically identifies Microsoft’s common stock on Nasdaq.