Mr. Abella says his firm will not buy shares from top tier names on the first day of trading and will be especially wary of debt-laden, private-equity-backed offerings, which he predicts will suffer in this environment.
Benedetti believes it is a positive sign for the market that bellwether technology stocks such as Intel intc closed higher on the day despite losses in second and third tier names.
"Deadfall" is a more luxurious item, with real locations and second-tier name actors.
"If I'm able to get an allocation from a top-tier name, I will generally be a buyer," he said.
That's why the Beatles, Britney Spears, Metallica, Madonna, the Backstreet Boys, the Rolling Stones and other top-tier names are absent so far from all commercial download services, including Apple's.
The Newport bookings are mostly first-tier names: the Hancock-Shorter group and Ornette Coleman, but also Peter Cincotti, Dave Douglas, George Shearing, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Lee Konitz, Dave Brubeck, Dianne Reeves, Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr.
"The jewelry brands that are doing extremely well today are top-tier names like Cartier," he said, "and the ones a level down can position themselves as more high-end through bespoke work".
As part of the alliance, two dozen venture capital firms -- including top-tier names like Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Venrock and DCM -- have committed to investing portions of their funds in start-ups founded in the United States.
Or, some industry veterans speculated, the shortage could mean that a segment of indie film, its financing hurt by the credit crisis and the recession, has grown too small to attract top-tier names.
By describing itself as a burgeoning luxury empire, Pegasus has led fashion editors and other industry experts to ask how one can build a prestigious empire without first-tier names, the Tom Fords and the John Gallianos.
The difficulty here seems to be similar to that faced by a couple choosing their wedding guests: once you start putting second-tier names on the list, it's impossible to know when to stop.
