Fund experts say the answer is simple: During the stock boom, investors focused on total return and largely ignored the small type that spelled out where their money was going.

Still, the stock boom here is curiously disconnected from the real economy.

Does he regret missing much of the stock boom of the 1980's?

Before he quit under pressure last summer, Mr. Grubman had come to symbolize the breed of stock analysts who became rich during the stock boom of the 1990's.

The last time a seat was sold, it went for $1.5 million, down from a high of $2.65 million in August 1999, shortly before the peak of the stock boom.

Most Internet companies, including AOL, became a lot more practical after the stock boom ended.

The tone of all of the brokerage firms' ads has veered sharply away from the giddiness they evoked during the stock boom of the late 1990's.

Fred invested his money in the stock market, benefitting handsomely from the ongoing stock boom, and was known as "Champagne Fred."

Behind the stock boom, analysts say, is a surging economy.

The first joint stock boom was in the early 1860s was cut short by the Lancashire Cotton Famine.