Buy-side analysts ("buy-siders") work for buy side money management firms such as mutual funds, pension funds, trusts, and hedge funds. They are incentivised to identify investment opportunities that will improve the net worth of the portfolio they work for.

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.