Buy-side analysts ("buy-siders") work for
buy side
Buy-side is a term used in investment firms to refer to advising institutions concerned with buying investment services. Private equity funds, mutual funds, life insurance companies, unit trusts, hedge funds, and pension funds are the most comm ...
money management firms such as
mutual fund
A mutual fund is a professionally managed investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV ...
s,
pension funds,
trusts
A trust is a legal relationship in which the holder of a right gives it to another person or entity who must keep and use it solely for another's benefit. In the Anglo-American common law, the party who entrusts the right is known as the "settl ...
, and
hedge fund
A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as s ...
s. They are tasked with identifying investment opportunities that will improve the net worth of the portfolio for which they work.
A buy-side analyst typically works in a mutual fund, pension fund, or other non-brokerage firm, and provides research and recommendations exclusively for the benefit of the company's own money managers (as opposed to individual investors). Unlike
sell-side recommendations and reports—which are meant for the analyst's brokerage firm's clients, and the broad outlines of which the press often widely disseminates—buy-side recommendations are not available to anyone outside the firm. If the buy-side analyst stumbles upon a formula, vision, or approach that proves effective, it is kept secret.
See also
*
*
Sell-side analyst
*
Securities research
Securities research is a discipline within the financial services industry. Securities research professionals are known most generally as "analysts", "research analysts", or "securities analysts"; all the foregoing terms are synonymous. Resea ...
*
Quantitative analysis (finance)
References
* Groysberg, Boris, Healy, Paul M., Chapman, Craig J. and Gui, Yang (August 2005), ''Do Buy-Side Analysts Out-Perform the Sell-Side?'', AAA 2006 Financial Accounting and Reporting Section (FARS),
Buy Side at Investopedia.com's dictionary
Financial analysts
{{finance-stub