The term CHARM Bank refers to an acronym popularly used in the 1990s to describe the top boutique investment banks of the decade. The five banks' whose initials comprise the acronym CHARM were: Cowen & Co., Hambrecht & Quist, Alex. Brown, Robertson Stephens and Montgomery Securities. All of these banks were absorbed by larger commercial or bulge bracket investment banks by the end of the decade, thus losing their independence as advisers and underwriters. They were known in particular for the financial services they provided to the decade's high growth industries: telecommunications, healthcare, internet, software, and hardware.