An analysis last April by Glass Lewis & Company, an institutional advisory firm, found that Brocade had used unrealistic assumptions in calculating its option expense in its financial footnotes.

While individual investors have continued to buy stocks and equity mutual funds, Salomon Brothers is mainly an institutional firm and does not have a big money management unit.

Analysts at Glass, Lewis & Company, an independent research and institutional advisory firm in San Francisco, were less surprised by the Taro debacle than most investors.

Assets held in such a manner are typically owned by larger institutional firms with a considerable amount of investments such as banks, insurance companies, mutual funds, hedge funds and pension funds.

However, the institutional firm will continue to execute such trades for its customers.

Glass Lewis, a respected institutional advisory firm based in San Francisco, disagrees.

The majority of institutional firms are like Boston's Franklin Portfolio Associates, which manages $3.5 billion.

Glass Lewis & Company, an institutional advisory firm in San Francisco, is urging shareholders to vote against the option plan because of its monster price tag.

"If you can get a relatively long-term sublet from an institutional financial firm with good credit, that's not such a bad bet."

Some institutional firms agree with the retail firms, hoping that their large customers will trade more if they believe the market is going to be less volatile.