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Fannie will trade under the ticker symbol FNMA, while Freddie’s new symbol is FMCC.

The New York and Chicago stock exchanges will suspend trading of Fannie’s common and preferred stock before the market opens Thursday. The NYSE also will delist Freddie’s stock Thursday.

Their federal regulator last month ordered the two companies to delist their shares from the NYSE after the exchange formally notified the government that Fannie Mae no longer met listing standards because its shares had fallen below the $1 share-price threshold maintained by NYSE Euronext.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the companies’ regulator, said it chose to voluntarily delist the stocks, rather than to present a plan to bring the shares back above $1, because it couldn’t be sure that such a plan would work or that it would be in the interest of the government and shareholders to try to keep prices above the $1 threshold.

The U.S. government took over the companies through a legal process known as conservatorship in September 2008 as rising mortgage defaults threatened to burn through thin capital reserves.

Fannie’s shares gained 5.7% to 26 cents in after-hours trading while Freddie’s dropped 8.8% to 31 cents.

Most analysts who cover the companies have long assumed that their common stock doesn’t have any value because the government has had to pump so much money into the firms to keep them afloat.