Mr. Hensley's bearish views find some support in the aerospace industry.

Whitney's extremely bearish view on banks landed her on the cover of the August 18, 2008, issue of Fortune Magazine.

In a June 2008 interview with Bloomberg, he goes over his bearish views on a wide spectrum of investments: stocks, real estate and commodities.

While an increase in short positions may indicate more bearish views on prices, the volume of short positions can also be affected by complex trading strategies.

That is a significantly more bearish view than Mr. McVey has.

Mr. Goldman's bearish view stems partly from his belief that the economy will run into a recession in 1988.

His bearish views on domestic investing have been more controversial, especially among the firm's 14,000 brokers.

But even Mr. Kaufman, long known for his bearish views on inflation, is not particularly worried.

Another widely offered reason for the bearish view is the feeling among many analysts that equity prices have been bid up to their fair value, or beyond.

Jeffrey Cohen of Goldman, Sachs & Company has a more bearish view for these companies.