As often happens in nervous selloffs, the stocks of many of the market's best-performing companies have been hit the hardest.

Andrea Electronics, a maker of audio and video equipment, was the best-performing company on the American Stock Exchange; its shares rose more than 377 percent.

What's striking, though, is that most of the best-performing companies are in the most traditional parts of the economy.

"Verizon Wireless is clearly the best-performing company in the industry, and Cingular is clearly improving and on the right track," Mr. Halpern said.

A recent German study of the best-performing companies in Europe showed the fruits of this freedom.

The proponents of flatter structures are some of the best-performing companies of the 1990's, like Wal-Mart and Cisco Systems.

His research found that the best-performing companies rarely appointed well-known outsiders as their chief executives.

In Canberra, the Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten said that some of the nation's best-performing companies should pay more into the public purse.

Lawrence Adelman, an analyst at Dean Witter Reynolds, said, "Philip Morris is one of the best-performing companies in the world and they are bringing enormous momentum into 1991."

In percentage terms, Apple Computer was among the best-performing companies on the Nasdaq in the quarter.