According to the New York Stock Exchange, a blue chip is stock in a corporation with a national reputation for quality, reliability and the ability to operate profitably in good times and bad.

For the Australian market the list of these companies are listed under Standard & Poor’s ASX 20 for ASX blue chip stocks.

As benefits the high-risk nature of stock picking, “blue chip” derives from poker. The simplest sets of poker betting discs include white, red, and blue chips, with tradition dictating that the blues are highest in value. If a white chip is worth $1, a red is usually worth $5, and a blue $10.

Other terms that are often used in conjunction with blue chip include “bellwether” and “Market Capitalization.” Bellwether is a term used to describe a company that is recognized as the leader in its industry. For example, Telstra would be considered a bellwether stock for a telco company. Large cap is a reference to the size of a company in terms of total market capitalization. Market capitalization is simply calculated by taking the number of shares outstanding and multiplying by the stock’s current price per share.

When buying a new stock the most important thing is to do your research. You have to make sure that the company is financially viable and in long term will remain profitable.

You have to check their history, their statements and their profits and loses.

But before all this you need to find a list of stocks that seems promising.

How do you do this? You can either hire a team of experts to do the research for you or you can use a stock screener/filter.

For Australian stock market there is good and free ASX stock screener.

The good thing about this service is not only you can filter stocks but you can also review any stocks financial data.

If you want to screen stock market to find the best valued shares you always need some kind of sophisticated screening tool.

A screener is a tool that would monitor the stock market and filter the securities based on criteria that you define.

My suggestion though is to use a tool that is easy and preferably free. Share screen easy!

Stock value is a free website focused on the ASX (Australian Security exchange).