NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Wall Street analysts are advising investors to unload shares at a record rate, new data show, as the U.S. stock market heads toward its first three-year losing streak since 1941.

First Call said the percentage of analyst "sell" ratings on stocks has risen to 3.4 percent, the highest since 1998, when the earnings tracking firm began keeping records.

There are 835 "sell" or "strong sell" ratings, 8,720 "hold" ratings and 14,626 "buy" ratings, according to First Call.

While "sell" ratings are still unusual, 3.4 percent is a big jump from the 0.8 percent in August 2000.

That may have been a better time to pare stocks; the Dow industrials have tumbled 24 percent during the last two years.

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Ken Perkins, an analyst at First Call, attributes some of the increased "sell" ratings to moves by investment banks and brokerages to simplify their stocks rating systems to "buy," "sell" and "hold" from more complicated and nuanced ratings.

But Perkins also linked the changes to the long bear market and an increasingly questionable economic recovery.

"The market is in terrible shape and the prospects for growth are not good," Perkins said.

The Federal Reserve Tuesday indicated that it stood ready to cut interest rate this year following 11 cuts in 2001.

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On Wednesday, Salomon Smith Barney said it cut its investment rating on Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI: Research, Estimates) to "sell" a day after UBS Warburg downgraded UAL, the parent of United Airlines, to "sell."

On Wall Street, the "hold" rating has often been seen as a code word for "sell." Seeing conflicts of interests, critics say analysts face pressure to publicly tout stocks in order to win business for their firms' investment banking units.

"You could still argue that they are still too bullish," First Call's Perkins said.

The rise in the number of "sell" ratings come amid a dubious market milestone. The Dow industrials would need to rise 19 percent over the next four-and-half months to escape its first three-year losing streak since 1941.

The sell-to-buy ratio is seen as a contrary indicator. Just as most analysts were bullish at the wrong time -- two years ago -- they may also be increasingly downbeat at the wrong time.