In a low interest rate environment, analysts continue to suggest that the stock market is the place to be. But there are also those who continue to urge caution, warning that markets fall as well as rise.

Propelled overwhelmingly by small investors buying and selling through maverick online brokerages such as E-Trade Group, the Internet stock boom of the last few months has blindsided the Wall Street establishment like nothing before.

So far, the mania has seen share prices of Internet-related companies sometimes quadruple in a day and billion-dollar enterprises bloom like tulips. The combined market value of the 20 companies in TheStreet.com's Internet stock index - including such names as Yahoo!, America Online, Netscape and Amazon.com - has more than tripled, to $504 billion (€436 billion), since mid-October. None of these companies existed a decade ago.

The Internet stock frenzy, however, has been showing signs of fatigue. Many popular stocks have suffered declines while investors complain loudly of trading glitches that make it difficult to buy or sell shares. In short, the very popularity of the game is causing it to break down.

For professional Wall Street, a comeuppance for the army of individual Net stock traders couldn't arrive soon enough. Indeed, the Net stock craze has seemed factory-engineered to drive the brokerage establishment crazy. Not only do the Internet stocks lack a pedigree - many of the hottest companies have yet to earn a penny of profit - but the people trading the shares thumb their noses at the investment tenets that Wall Street holds dear.

Concern extends beyond the Internet stocks themselves. A collapse of those shares could drag the entire stock market down, some experts worry.

However much lip service may be paid to individual investors being the bedrock of the US capital-market system, critics say the fact is that Wall Street abhors democracy.