As it ended, the most popular stocks were being issued by young companies that had never earned a dollar, let alone paid a dividend.

She added that historically, when growth rates among the most popular stocks begin to turn down, the overall market stumbles.

For most of the 1990's, it was the most popular stock in Russia.

In that same period, the Standard & Poor's index of 500 popular stocks, a major market measure, rose about 10 percent.

This sounds like the story of many popular new stocks, which lose their froth at the first difficulty.

Taking profits on last year's most popular stocks might be a wise move, too.

So, he said, they are still snapping up the most popular stocks, including those of technology, media and communications companies.

It also had trouble with several popular Canadian stocks.

Take a popular stock like Intel, which has fallen 63 percent from its high of $75.81 in August.

Wave then was the most popular stock followed on Ragingbull.com, a financial message board; more than 100,000 messages had been written kicking around its prospects.