History of blue chips

Do you want to know the history of blue chip stocks?

The phrase was coined by Oliver Gingold of Dow Jones about the year 1923. 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 W.E. Hutton & Co. that he intended to return to the office to “write about these blue chip stocks.” The phrase has been in use ever since, originally in reference to high-priced and high-quality stocks.