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To find an answer to your question, we began with a Yahoo! search on: etymology "blue chip" (using quotation marks to ensure that the words "blue" and "chip" always appeared together). Although we didn't come up with any Yahoo! categories or Yahoo!-listed sites, we received a list of web pages to check out. It took us just a moment to realize that the second listing was a winner. Part of syndicated columnist Evan Morris's Word Detective site, the page offers explanations of terms such as mistletoe, yuletide, and heyday. Here's what Morris has to say about blue chips:
The phrase dates back to 1904, and comes from the blue chips used as the (everyone sitting down?) ... highest denomination chips in poker games. Morris goes on to explain that the term refers to "the most stable and valuable stocks." That sounded like a reasonable explanation to us. All we needed was some confirmation. We returned to the search box and revised our query to the lengthy phrase "poker blue chip stock market." This search turned up several Financial Glossaries (from ThinkQuest,
Wall Street Access, and Salomon Smith Barney), each of which verified that the term is thought to originate from the game of poker. Finally, we searched Yahoo! Shopping, looking for "poker chips." Yes indeed, the most common combination of chip colors seemed to be red, white, and blue. However, our favorite type of poker chip has got to be chocolate. They're a winner every time, though not necessarily a long term investment.
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