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Holding the bag edit
There seems to be sufficient coverage of the phrase to expand this section, and possibly to create a stand-alone page for it, especially since the phrase is used in other contexts besides finance. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:46, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
Dubious source edit
The claim that the phrase relates to a bag of stolen goods seems dubious, even though it's been sourced to some random website. (Which even starts its explanation with "You can imagine...")
To me the phrase clearly relates to the victim of the ancient "pig in a poke" scam (the precursor to the modern penny share fraud), who is left holding a bag full of air or junk rather than the valuable animal they expected.
If you were a criminal gang confronted by the police with a bag of stolen goods, the obvious course of action would be to run away with the bag, or if it was too heavy, drop it and have everyone escape. Not leave the "stupidest member" to be arrested and potentially blab on his treacherous mates, while still losing the bag.
I haven't tagged it because I'm aware that OR doesn't trump a sourced assertion (no matter how logical the OR and how weak the source). --195.206.172.158 (talk) 11:50, 7 October 2021 (UTC)