Average earnings for institutional brokers, who sell to big money funds, also increased less than 1 percent last year, to $166,335, from $165,730 in 1989.

"We saw big orders to sell stocks short just vanish," said one institutional broker.

By Friday, reports one money manager who insisted on not being identified, "institutional brokers were pitching it as a sure thing."

"I don't see a lot of commitments" to the stock market, said one institutional broker at Merrill Lynch, who asked not to be named.

Bulls were also buoyed by upbeat equity strategy notes from institutional brokers.

As well as being one of the leading institutional brokers, it is one of the largest private client firms in Ireland.

"I was scared this morning," said one institutional broker at E. F. Hutton.

Instinet is an institutional, agency-only broker that also serves as the independent equity trading arm of its parent, Nomura.

The Lehman Formula is only used when a large stock investment transaction is made with an investment bank or institutional broker.

His firm's Institutional Brokers Estimate System tracks changes by 2,500 analysts at 130 brokerage houses.