January 14, 2021 The prospectus held no punch line. But the company was LMAO all the same. On Friday, LMF Acquisition Opportunities filed to raise $75 million in an IPO on Nasdaq. Its Class A shares, the prospectus proposed, would trade under the symbol LMAO. With an equally straight face, the prospectus named the sponsor company: LMFAO Sponsor, based out of Florida. These companies are affiliated to LM Funding America, a 12-year-old financial services firm that manages the collection process for delinquent home debt. After the filing, shares in LM Funding America rose 160% on Nasdaq. Novelty stock symbols aren’t new. Nasdaq, in fact, has its own web page listing its 10 favorites—among them, the Asian Tigers Fund’s GRR and Franklin Resources’ BEN. “When I was at the Securities and Exchange Commission, there were a few marijuana-related penny stocks with clever symbols,” Joshua White, a one-time financial economist at the SEC and now an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, said. “For example, Canopy Growth Corp trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker WEED.” Exchanges are free to reject symbols that companies propose. White recalled the instance of Furr’s/Bishop’s, which was denied its request to be listed as FBI.