Nervous investors are eyeing the possibility of more Enron-style corporate collapses amid growing concerns that questionable accounting practices could obscure corporate financial ailments.
Since Enron, once the seventh most-successful company in the US, filed for bankruptcy, Wall Street has punished a number of companies suggesting even the slightest hint of accounting discrepancies -- the bankruptcies of retailer Kmart and telecom group Global Crossing only compounding fears.
The irony in the recent scandal is that the US system of accounting and audit checks of publicly-traded companies has long been held up as a model of transparency to the rest of the world.
"After Enron, investors are questioning the integrity of the financial reports of the largest companies in the world," said Richard Cripps, chief market strategist at Legg Mason.
"Their faith has been broken -- their faith in the financial reports and their faith that they could just buy and hold shares in these large companies."
Despite the jitters, analysts and US officials call fears of massive fraud in the US accounting system horribly exaggerated. But some firms have taken their own unenvied place in the spotlight, their stocks taking a pounding:
-- Shares in Tyco fell 20 percent in a single day amid concerns about payments made to an outside director; shares fell further after a report two key executives quietly sold US$100 million in stock then recovered when agreeing to purchase more.
-- Williams, an energy trading and pipeline firm which spun off its telecom subsidiary, saw a 22 percent drop in shares after it delayed its earnings report -- a move often seen as a bad sign by Wall Street.
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