Blue chip (stock market)

Blue Chip is an originally American, today most common name for companies or customers with particularly high value.

Background

The term blue chip is used in particular for

• Heavily traded shares of joint stock companies with high market capitalization ( German: default / Large Cap; contrary: in addition to value / small cap ), market capitalization weighting and thus in the corresponding index
• Stocks of large, international, well-known and respected company of high solidity and creditworthiness, which are characterized by mass and profitability.
• Particularly good mandates a law firm ( blue chip mandate ).

Blue - chip stocks listed on the major stock exchanges worldwide. Your performance is often used as a basis of calculation of indices. Blue Chips are represented including the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the EURO STOXX 50, DAX and SMI. Differences are companies according to their market capitalization, which is referred to as small caps companies under a billion euros, mid caps and large caps in between significantly higher. The boundaries are dynamic and based on the life cycle of the company, Cisco Systems began as growth companies and small cap and is now with 93 billion euro market capitalization among the blue chips in the industry.

Among the German blue-chip DAX include major companies such as German Bank, SAP, Siemens, Volkswagen, Allianz, E.ON, BASF, German Telekom and Daimler.

Swiss blue chips are for example: UBS, Credit Suisse, Novartis, Hoffmann-La Roche, Nestlé, Geberit.

Austrian blue-chip include: voestalpine, OMV, Telekom Austria.

European blue chips include: Air Liquide, AstraZeneca, BP, Danone, GDF Suez, GlaxoSmithKline, L' Oreal, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Unilever.

U.S. blue chips are for example: American Express, Bank of America, Coca -Cola, Exxon Mobil, IBM, Kraft Foods, McDonald's, Procter & Gamble.

Chinese blue chips include: PetroChina, China Mobile, ICBC / Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Merchants Holdings International, China Life Insurance, BOC / Bank of China, China Telecom, China Construction Bank, China Petroleum

Origin of the name

The term blue chip is due to the proliferation of blue chips (chips) in poker games in casinos, as they always had the highest value. As one of the first casinos, which established the color blue as the color for the highest Chips, Casino Monte Carlo is true because this was one of the most influential early time casinos.