Check out "The MOAT Mini Pack of Marching Bands" here: https://www.ephesusscroll.com/about/interest4.html. US$5 gets you 7 Marching Bands which, hard enough on their own, now contain metas too. And once again there's a mega-meta!
I had intended for all the companies to be currently listed. But somehow KONAMI got through, and I was too lazy to find an alternate. Hence, the weirdly worded hint in 67 across!
Solved, but reading some of the comments, I'm not sure I used the right metanism.
Bird Lives 6s · 2023-02-28T16:11:06.675Z
Reportedly, it's hard to do.
BarbaraK 2s · 2023-02-28T16:40:05.670Z
Definitely in the wheelhouse for WSJ readers:)
Thanks!
Sharkicicles 2s · 2023-02-28T19:37:20.008Z
Thanks Ben!
MatthewL 🤓9:32 · 2023-02-28T19:41:04.582Z
Nice puzzle! Spent way too much time trying to figure out what Konami's stock symbol was in 2002 when it first listed on the NYSE, but finally got it. Thanks Ben!
Carolyn 3s · 2023-02-28T19:42:08.812Z
Very nice! I had the same trouble with Konami, but figured it had to be that. Thanks
Bbaack 12:29 · 2023-02-28T21:46:15.516Z
Great idea; quick solve after a bit of Googling. Thanks for the fun!
ReB 🤓35:28 · 2023-03-01T05:53:01.468Z
Nice construction that you fit the grid entries symmetrically to match the clues.
I needed a lot of help on this one. I saw what I was supposed to do, and thought I did it, but made a couple of errors in my lists. One was to not include SKATEBOARD but rather SUNOCO which gave me entirely wrong letters, and not parsing the stock symbols correctly, i.e. M OR ON and H OUND OG. Ah well, MEg gave me the push (was way too heavy to call a nudge) and here I am.
whimsy 13:30 · 2023-03-01T21:49:10.619Z
Did this in sort of a seat of the pants fashion -- didn't go to the NYSE listing, but lazily looked for a letter in each relevant entry that looked as though it didn't belong in the company name and so probably not in the stock symbol. When I saw I could manage Break Up, I figured that had to be it. Thanks Ben for a fun puzzle that was certainly more precise than I was!
Abide 5s · 2023-03-02T02:51:08.546Z
I’ll give you extra credit for the Facebook reference since they changed their ticker symbol last May from FB to META. Using all letters in the grid the solution is still correct.