What is the origin of the expression "blue chip"?
Blue chip stocks are typically thought to be the issues floated by the large, reliable, good-return companies -- historically, the General Motors, IBM, Dow Chemical, etc. (bell-wethers all).
We'd be willing to bet (an especially apt figure of speech, as it turns out) that those "blue chip" companies would rather not be asked where the term "blue chip" itself comes from. The phrase dates back to 1904, and comes from the blue chips used as the (everyone sitting down?) ... highest denomination chips in poker games. Poker, as in gambling, as in bet your money and lose your shirt. "Blue chip" stocks today may be the most stable and valuable stocks, but the folks who started using the expression on the Stock Exchange evidently were well aware that the similarities between their enterprise and a high-stakes poker game ran deep.
