Get last "column" after .str.split() operation on column in pandas DataFrame

You could use the tolist method as an intermediary:

In [99]: import pandas as pd

In [100]: d1 = pd.DataFrame({'ticker' : ['spx 5/25/2001 p500', 'spx 5/25/2001 p600', 'spx 5/25/2001 p700']})

In [101]: d1.ticker.str.split().tolist()
Out[101]: 
[['spx', '5/25/2001', 'p500'],
 ['spx', '5/25/2001', 'p600'],
 ['spx', '5/25/2001', 'p700']]

From which you could make a new DataFrame:

In [102]: d2 = pd.DataFrame(d1.ticker.str.split().tolist(), 
   .....:                   columns="symbol date price".split())

In [103]: d2
Out[103]: 
  symbol       date price
0    spx  5/25/2001  p500
1    spx  5/25/2001  p600
2    spx  5/25/2001  p700

For good measure, you could fix the price:

In [104]: d2["price"] = d2["price"].str.replace("p","").astype(float)

In [105]: d2
Out[105]: 
  symbol       date  price
0    spx  5/25/2001    500
1    spx  5/25/2001    600
2    spx  5/25/2001    700

PS: but if you really just want the last column, apply would suffice:

In [113]: temp2.apply(lambda x: x[2])
Out[113]: 
0    p500
1    p600
2    p700
Name: ticker

Do this:

In [43]: temp2.str[-1]
Out[43]: 
0    p500
1    p600
2    p700
Name: ticker

So all together it would be:

>>> temp = pd.DataFrame({'ticker' : ['spx 5/25/2001 p500', 'spx 5/25/2001 p600', 'spx 5/25/2001 p700']})
>>> temp['ticker'].str.split(' ').str[-1]
0    p500
1    p600
2    p700
Name: ticker, dtype: object