Maybe so no one can do a search on it, and see that is being discussed on the DD Board? Just a guess, can't imagine why anyone would use an asterisk on a board where no stock is off-topic.
I'm surprised at the question given your long history on IHUB. Surely you have seen this many times by posters. The answer I got when I inquired about it is that it seems to be a way to avoid the appearance of trying to spam another stock, and getting penalized as a result. So, even though that didn't make much sense to me I started doing it too.