By far the gloomiest is CLSA, a broking firm, which is predicting a horrendous 11% drop in 2009.

ECONOMIST: The ugliest economy of them all?

Robert Iati of TowerGroup, a firm of consultants, points out that broking firms, for example, use information from a wide variety of sources, trading and payment systems, geographical locations and business units.

ECONOMIST: Security and financial services

Morgan Stanley's proprietary funds have the biggest market share among the five largest broking firms, according to Financial Research Corp, a Boston research firm.

ECONOMIST: Wall Street

Analysts are employed by banks, fund managers and stock broking firms to study the performance and trading prospects of a particular firm or company sector.

BBC: Q & A The role of the City analyst