Zillow Inc. wants to end the New York Stock Exchange's monopolyon companies trading under a single letter.

Zillow, a real-estate website that filed last month to raise asmuch as $51.8 million by going public, disclosed this week that itapplied for a Nasdaq Stock Market listing under the ticker Z.Assuming the application is approved, Zillow would be the firstNasdaq stock with a one-letter symbol.

“They're doing it to attract attention, obviously,” said BobStovall, a managing director and global strategist at Wood AssetManagement Inc. who has worked on Wall Street since 1953. “Iwouldn't even notice it or look it up,” he said, if Zillow used thetraditional four letters for a symbol.

Nasdaq-listed companies have been able to trade under a singleletter since July 2007, when the Securities and Exchange Commissionchanged the regulations that governed ticker symbols. Before then,stocks could only have one to three letters on the NYSE or theformer American Stock Exchange, now NYSE Amex.

Another company preparing for an initial public offering,Pandora Media Inc., plans to list its shares on the NYSE under theletter P. The Internet-music service would become the first companyto use that ticker since September 2002, when Phillips PetroleumCo. combined with Conoco Inc. to form ConocoPhillips.

The Z ticker has been available since March 2003, when FootLocker Inc. adopted FL as its symbol. Z had previously been used byFoot Locker and three predecessor companies — Venator Group Inc.,Woolworth Corp. and F.W. Woolworth Co. — since 1925.

“We couldn't be more excited” about Zillow's plan to adopt theletter, said Robert H. McCooey Jr., senior vice president of newlistings and capital markets at Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. in New York.Using Z “will allow them to brand themselves well.”

A Zillow spokeswoman, Charlynn Duecy, declined to comment on thedecision. The Seattle-based company provides property- valueestimates and displays real-estate listings on its site. RichAdamonis, an NYSE Euronext spokesman, declined to comment aswell.

Zillow has yet to determine the price or number of shares forits IPO. Neither has Pandora, based in Oakland, California, whichplans to go public with a $100 million stock sale.

After the two companies complete their IPOs, only five letterswill be available for ticker symbols: I, J, Q, U and W. I has beenavailable since First Interstate Bancorp was bought by Wells Fargo& Co. in 1996. J, U and W have gone unused since 2002. Q openedup last month after CenturyLink Inc. completed a takeover of QwestCommunications International Inc., the only company ever to usethat letter for its ticker.

The most recent company to adopt a single-letter symbol wasHyatt Hotels Corp., which began trading under the ticker H afterits IPO in November 2009. Chicago-based Hyatt succeeded RealogyCorp., which was taken private by Apollo Management LP in an April2007 buyout.

NYSE companies have been able to select tickers with fourletters since the SEC's rules changed. LinkedIn Corp., the firstsocial-media company to go public in the U.S., took advantage ofthis provision. Shares of the Mountain View, California-basedcompany started trading under the symbol LNKD last week.

Bloomberg News