Sell-side 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. Securities analysts are commonly divided between the two basic kinds of securities: analysts (researching stocks and their issuers) and fixed income analysts (researching bond issuers). However, there are some analysts who cover all of the securities of a particular issuer, stocks and bonds alike.

Securities analysts are usually further subdivided by industry specialization (or sectors) -- among the industries with the most analyst coverage are biotechnology, financial services, energy, and computer hardware, software and services. Fixed income analysts are also often subdivided by asset class—among the fixed income asset classes with the most analyst coverage are convertible bonds, high yield bonds (see high-yield debt), and distressed bonds (see distressed securities). Although technically not securities, syndicated bank loans typically fall within the domain of fixed income analysts, and are covered, as if they were bonds, by reference to the industry of their borrowers or asset class in which their credit quality would place them.

In the broadest terms, securities analysts seek to develop and communicate to investors insights regarding the value, risk, and volatility of a covered security, and thus assist investors to decide whether to buy, hold, sell, sell short, or simply avoid the security in question or derivative securities (see: derivative). To gather the information required to do so, securities analysts review periodic financial disclosures (such as made by United States-listed issuers to the Securities and Exchange Commission) of the issuer and other relevant companies, participate or listen in on management conference calls, read industry news and use trading history and industry information databases, interview managers and customers of the issuer, and (sometimes) perform their own primary research.

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Wikipedia