Securities research

Investment banks Independent Securities research is a discipline within the financial services industry.

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.

Buy-side research, however, is usually not published as it is created for internal use at an asset manager or hedge fund.

Sell-side research is offered as part of a broad set of financial services including broking and corporate finance.

Credit rating agencies such as Moody's, Fitch, and S&P provide a similar service for bond securities.

The Series 86 Research Analyst exam is the Quantitative portion consisting of material from introductory economics and financial accounting.

[6] Passing this exam allows the individual to receive the Type 4 license to be a publishing research analyst in Hong Kong.

(With respect to the latter, the NYSE and the NASD have re-delegated the substance of regulation to the broker-dealer trade group Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association as the merger successor of the Bond Market Association, to whom the role was originally assigned.)

The impact upon securities research regulation of the pending merger of the NASD with the regulatory arm of the NYSE is currently uncertain.

In the immediate aftermath of the excesses of the 1990s referred to above, Eliot Spitzer, Governor of the State of New York, asserted a significant role in policing securities research performed by New York-based analysts; it is unclear whether oversight by the New York State Attorney General will become a long-term meaningful component of securities research.