The New York federal court is poised to release nearly $450 million to investors who bought stocks during the bubble based on Wall Street analyst ratings. The money was raised by 11 investment banks as part of the settlement. Here is the settlement list. The rules are:

1. You lost money
2. You bought through the firms involved in the settlement
3. You bought during a specified time period
4. You were burned on specific stocks

The settlement favors small investors over large ones because of the expectation that small investors don't have access to the same level of research as the big players. The expected payout could be around 30 cents on each dollar of losses--which is much higher than the 5 cents usually paid out in these sorts of situations. I traded on some of the listed stocks during the bubble, but I was trading on Datek at the time.

I'm not sure if this is good publicity or bad publicity for the banks. It's good that they ponied up millions of dollars, but I think it would be good for them to put all the research vs. Investment banking conflict behind them. I imagine for the most part it will slip under the radar.