RE: #73 sprott iceberg on the bid @.95 "sellpubs"i use stockstream about $110.00 month works very well though! money well spent! #73 is sprott(cormark) when i move the cursor over the house # on level 2 it shows me the brokerage house name! #88 is etrade looks like sprott wanted 200k!
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here's the news from april sprott/cormark! Sticks and stones may break my bones? Renaming a company Carrie Tait, Financial Post Published: Monday, April 02, 2007 Nobody likes to be called names and that includes the folks at Cormark Securities Inc., formerly Sprott Securities Inc. When the 26-year-old brokerage faced the daunting challenge of changing its name, one long associated with successful Bay Street money-man Eric Sprott, avoiding the usual behind-the-back-mockery was high on the list of priorities. Sprott Securities, which in 2002 became completely independent from Mr. Sprott, its founder, is raising the curtain on its new name today. It wants to differentiate itself from Sprott Asset Management Inc., Mr. Sprott's money management firm. While all formal ties between the two were severed years ago, people still confused the pair, so the brokerage decided to find a new identity. Email to a friend Printer friendly Font:****It was no idle concern. Consider what some other Bay Street firms have been forced to fend off over the years. In alphabetical order: Blackmont Capital Inc. is often called Black Death. And that's a spectacular improvement over its old moniker, when its maiden name, First Associates Investments Inc., was abbreviated into First Ass. Traders have at least three favourites -- Canacrap, Canacorn, and Canaworms -- when talking trash about Canaccord Capital Corp., previously Canarim Investment Corp. But that's just gentle ribbing compared to what traders think of when Haywood comes up (it's five-word handle is too vulgar for these pages). A couple of letters down the alphabetical lane sit two harmless nicknames: MacDougal, MacDougal & MacTier Inc. was rarely called anything but the Three Macs, while Maison Placements Canada Inc. used to be called the House of Placemats. Paradigm Capital Inc. is known as Paraslime, and Westwind Partners has two nicknames -- Breakwind and Wastewind. And what of Yorkton Securities Inc.? Porkton. At first blush, there were no obvious nasty rhymes or dirty nicknames tied to the name Cormark, so the company decided to go ahead with it. "It doesn't necessarily turn your crank at the first hearing," said Jeff Kennedy, chief financial officer at the brokerage house. But give it 24 hours or so and you'll find there's nothing wrong with it, he said. "It's kind of an empty vessel," he said. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but creating a lifeless shell is actually the point. "Now we have a vessel we can fill with our own brand." As cold and unlovable as that may sound, Cormark is doing precisely the right thing, experts say. Starting with a name that sports all the personality of a potato means any future successes (or failures) will become associated with the new brand. Cormark is a blank canvas, free of any legacy associations. "When you use a word that's not a real word like that ... right out of the box it isn't going to have a real powerful brand," said Kyle Murray, a marketing professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business, formally known as the Western Business School, at the University of Western Ontario. "But for the customers who start to receive statements and see it on business cards, they will quickly establish their own notion of what it is. And hopefully the company can have some influence over what those are." As Mr. Kennedy said, they get to make Cormark their own. On the downside, Cormark's ties to Eric Sprott -- a man who invokes visions of mega-returns and fabulous stock picks -- have never hurt it on the money-hungry Street. On the other hand, Cormark, a private shop owned almost exclusively by its 102 employees, is going into its rebranding adventure on a positive note, rather than trying to mask over a not-so-flowery history. (Hello, Orion Securities Inc., formally Yorkton Securities Inc.) As the Cormark brass worked to come up with their new name -- an exercise that shouldn't be associated with "fun," "cheap," or "easy," according to Mr. Kennedy -- they started with the word "core." Think: core values. Eventually the firm brought a consultant on board to guide the process. Ryan Shay, one of Cormark's men in Calgary, first spit out the name Cormark. But what about this business of a new nickname for Cormark Securities Inc? How about CSI: Bay Street? ctait@nationalpost.com CHEERS, hope this helps!