"We are not recommending any in the property and casualty group among the small specialty insurers," said Mr. Smith of Prescott, Ball.

She is a fixed-income sales associate at Prescott Ball & Turben, investment bankers in New York.

"You are entering situations and they are just not panning out the way they would have a year ago," said Michael Greenberg, a senior vice president at Prescott, Ball.

"It's like a huge trend right now," said Mr. Greenberg at Prescott, Ball.

The apparel maker made 13 cents a share in the fourth quarter of 1988, said Ms. Armstrong of Prescott Ball.

And Timothy P. Burns, a paper analyst at Prescott Ball & Turben Inc., is predicting a fivefold rise in earnings this year.

"Roger was willing to leverage his whole family to get the business," said Arthur Stupay, an analyst at Prescott, Ball.

At the market, Iris Bailin, then a chef at Prescott Ball & Turben, a brokerage firm in Cleveland, became a regular customer.

"If you take out 40,000 people at an average of $45,000 a year each, that comes to $1.8 billion," said Arthur G. Davis, an analyst with Prescott Ball & Turben.

She is in institutional bond sales at Prescott Ball & Turben in New York.