I just noticed that a lot of people in the investment group are asking each other, “What does CA mean?” It’s really something you should know if you’re going to trade stocks.

When you open a streaming application, you’ll see strange abbreviations after stock names, such as CA, XD, XM, T1, etc. The part that appears as CA means an abbreviation indicating that “this stock is going to have an important event within 7 days.” CA stands for Corporate Action, which means actions taken by the company. Click into it to see what will happen and when.

Stock suffix symbols are divided into three main categories.

The first group is the X symbol. This letter stands for “Excluding,” meaning you will not receive certain rights. For example, XD (Excluding Dividend): if you buy during the XD period, you won’t receive the dividend this round. But if you hold on until the next XD period, you’ll receive the dividend next time. XM does not attend shareholder meetings. XW means you do not have the right to buy warrants. There are also many others, such as XR (Excluding Right), meaning no right to subscribe for new shares; XT (Excluding Transferable Subscription Right), meaning no warrants/rights to subscribe; XI, meaning no interest; XN, meaning you won’t get a refund from capital reduction, and so on.

The second group is the T symbol, which means “Trading Alert.” When you see a T, it indicates that the stock has surged too high and there is heavy speculation. The Stock Exchange issues control measures, with three levels. T1: you can trade only with a Cash Balance account for 3 weeks. T2: if it still meets the criteria, it is raised to level 2, and you are also prohibited from using the stock as collateral for 3 weeks. T3: the final level, prohibits offsetting (Settlement). This means that when you sell, the money does not come back immediately, but instead arrives the next day.

The third group is the warning symbols: H (Trading Halt) — trading is temporarily suspended for 1 round; SP (Trading Suspension) — suspended for more than 1 round; NP (Notice Pending) — the company has something it must report; NC (Non-Compliance) — the company meets the criteria for delisting; ST (Stabilization) — it is maintaining price stability; C (Caution) — the company has serious financial issues.

In reality, knowing what CA means and understanding the other stock suffix symbols is just as important as reading charts, because it tells you how risky the stock is and what kinds of events might happen. Before you decide to buy or sell, you should always check these symbols first.