Blue chip (stock market)

Last updated

A blue chip is capital stock of a stock corporation (contrasted with non-stock one) with a national reputation for quality, reliability, and the ability to operate profitably in both good and bad times. [1] [2]

Contents

Origin

As befits the sometimes high-risk nature of stock picking, the term "blue chip" derives from the card game poker. The simplest sets of poker chips include white, red, and blue chips, with American tradition dictating that the blues are highest in value.

In the United States, blue chips were traditionally used for higher values such that "blue chip" used in noun and adjectival senses are attested since 1873 and 1894, respectively. [3] This established connotation was first extended to the sense of a blue-chip stock in the 1920s. [4] According to Dow Jones company folklore, this sense extension was coined by Oliver Gingold (an early employee of the company that would become Dow Jones) sometime in the 1920s, when Gingold was standing by the stock ticker at the brokerage firm that later became Merrill Lynch. Noticing several trades at $200 or $250 a share or more, he said to Lucien Hooper of stock brokerage W.E. Hutton & Co. that he intended to return to the office to "write about these blue-chip stocks". It has been in use ever since, originally in reference to high-priced stocks, more commonly used today to refer to high-quality stocks. [5]

United States

The most popular index that follows United States blue chips is the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a price-weighted average of 30 blue-chip stocks that are generally the leaders in their industry. All companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average are blue-chips, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average is an index that does not include all companies that are blue chips. Nevertheless, it has been a widely followed indicator of the stock market since October 1, 1928. [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York Stock Exchange</span> American stock exchange

The New York Stock Exchange is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is the largest stock exchange in the world by market capitalization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dow Jones Industrial Average</span> American stock market index composed of 30 industry leaders

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Dow Jones, or simply the Dow, is a stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States.

In 2001, stock prices took a sharp downturn in stock markets across the United States, Canada, Asia, and Europe. After recovering from lows reached following the September 11 attacks, indices slid steadily starting in March 2002, with dramatic declines in July and September leading to lows last reached in 1997 and 1998. The U.S. dollar increased in value relative to the euro, reaching a 1-to-1 valuation not seen since the euro's introduction.

In the United States, the term Nifty Fifty was an informal designation for a group of roughly fifty large-cap stocks on the New York Stock Exchange in the 1960s and 1970s that were widely regarded as solid buy and hold growth stocks, or "Blue-chip" stocks. These fifty stocks are credited by historians with propelling the bull market of the early 1970s, while their subsequent crash and underperformance through the early 1980s are an example of what may occur following a period during which many investors ignore fundamental stock valuation metrics, to instead make decisions on popular sentiment. Roughly half of the Nifty Fifty have since recovered and are solid performers, although a few are now defunct or otherwise worthless.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wall Street Crash of 1929</span> American stock market crash

The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, Crash of '29, or Black Tuesday, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It began in September, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) collapsed, and ended in mid-November. The pivotal role of the 1920s' high-flying bull market and the subsequent catastrophic collapse of the NYSE in late 1929 is often highlighted in explanations of the causes of the worldwide Great Depression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">S&P 500</span> American stock market index

The Standard and Poor's 500, or simply the S&P 500, is a stock market index tracking the stock performance of 500 of the largest companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. It is one of the most commonly followed equity indices and includes approximately 80% of the total market capitalization of U.S. public companies, with an aggregate market cap of more than $43 trillion as of January 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Dow</span> American journalist (1851–1902)

Charles Henry Dow was an American journalist who co-founded Dow Jones & Company with Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Casino chip</span> Small discs used as currency in casinos

Casino chips are small discs used as currency in casinos. Larger, rectangular gaming plaques may be used for high-stakes games. Poker chips are also widely used as play money in casual or tournament games, are of numismatic value to casino chip collectors, or may be kept as souvenirs.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average is a U.S. stock market index from S&P Dow Jones Indices of the transportation sector, and is the most widely recognized gauge of the American transportation sector. It is the oldest stock index still in use, even older than its better-known relative, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BUX</span> Hungarian stock market index

BUX is a blue chip stock market index consisting up to 25 major Hungarian companies trading on the Budapest Stock Exchange. Prices are taken from the electronic Xetra trading system. According to the operator Budapest Stock Exchange, the BUX measures the performance of the Equities Prime Market's 12 to 25 largest Hungarian companies in terms of order book volume and market capitalization. It is the equivalent of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and DAX, the index shows the average price changing of the shares with the biggest market value and turnover in the equity section. Hereby this is the most important index number of the exchange trends.

The Dow Jones Utility Average is a stock index from S&P Dow Jones Indices that tracks the performance of 15 prominent utility companies traded in the United States.

The Dogs of the Dow is an investment strategy popularized by Michael B. O'Higgins in a 1991 book and his Dogs of the Dow website.

A trading curb is a financial regulatory instrument that is in place to prevent stock market crashes from occurring, and is implemented by the relevant stock exchange organization. Since their inception, circuit breakers have been modified to prevent both speculative gains and dramatic losses within a small time frame. When triggered, circuit breakers either stop trading for a small amount of time or close trading early in order to allow accurate information to flow among market makers and for institutional traders to assess their positions and make rational decisions.

A capitalization-weightedindex, also called a market-value-weighted index is a stock market index whose components are weighted according to the total market value of their outstanding shares. Every day an individual stock's price changes and thereby changes a stock index's value. The impact that individual stock's price change has on the index is proportional to the company's overall market value, in a capitalization-weighted index. In other types of indices, different ratios are used.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dow Jones Global Titans 50</span> Stock market index

The Dow Jones Global Titans 50 index is a float-adjusted index of 50 of the largest and best known blue chip companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, Euronext, London Stock Exchange, and Tokyo Stock Exchange. The index represents the biggest and most liquid stocks traded in individual countries. It was created by Dow Jones Indexes to reflect the globalization of international blue chip securities in the wake of mergers and the creation of megacorporations.

The NYSE Composite (^NYA) is a stock market index covering all common stock listed on the New York Stock Exchange, including American depositary receipts, real estate investment trusts, tracking stocks, and foreign listings. It includes corporations in each of the ten industries listed in the Industry Classification Benchmark. It uses free-float market cap weighting.

The Global Dow (GDOW) is a 150-stock index of corporations from around the world, created by Dow Jones & Company. Only blue-chip stocks are included in the index.

The NYSE Arca Major Market Index, previously the AMEX Major Market Index, is the American price-weighted stock market index made up of 20 Blue Chip industrial stocks of major U.S. corporations. Several of the stocks are also components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA).

The Barron's 400 Index or B400 is a stock market index of 400 public companies in the United States, as selected by editors and associates of Barron's magazine. Established in 2007, the Barron's 400 has tended to outperform certain other major indexes at least through the first half of 2013.

References

  1. ↑ "NYSE Group, Inc". Nyse.com. Archived from the original on 2012-10-17. Retrieved 2011-09-19.
  2. ↑ Blue Chip Definition Investopedia
  3. ↑ Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, archived from the original on 2020-05-25, retrieved 2016-09-13.
  4. ↑ Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, archived from the original on 2020-10-10, retrieved 2016-09-13.
  5. ↑ Prestbo, John (12 March 2008). "Ever Wonder How 'Blue-Chip' Stocks Started?" (PDF). Dow Jones (internal news item). Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  6. ↑ "Dow Jones Industrial Average: Stock Index Summary". Bloomberg. 1928-10-01. Retrieved 2011-09-19.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.