Institutional Investors have always been drawn to companies with common financial and managerial characteristics. In the 1970's a group of firms were identified as the ”nifty fifty.” The group has never been static. Companies moved in and out of this group of institutional favorites with changes in the perceptions of institutional investment managers. There has been a good deal of academic research on the financial characteristics of these institutional favorites, but most of the work was done without respect to the underlying macroeconomic environment. The summer of 2000 was a turning point in American capital markets. There was a slowdown in business activity, an increase in unemployment, and declining values in the equities markets. Later, the period from March 2001 to November 2001 was identified as an economic recession, and the following recovery period was slow. During this period institutional investors continued to buy and sell equities in large blocks. The purpose of this study is to provide a financial analysis of firms that may be described as ”institutional favorites” in such a period. Specifically, the analysis will test for significant differences in the financial profiles of the institutionally favored firms, and companies selected at random during the same period, and from the same industries. A unique financial profile is established for the institutionally favored firms during this period. As in previous analysis such as this multiple discriminant analysis is used.