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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ild who wrote (88788)	1/24/2001 5:42:13 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

ild, Sell side and buy side refer to which side of Wall Street you are on. For example, Aim Funds is on the buy side as they manage mutual funds, are taking in more money most of the time, and are constantly buying new securities from, you guessed it, the sell side. the sell side is basically brokerage firms. So, it defines whether you are an asset management firm (mutual fund, hedge fund, bank, insurance co.) or a brokerage/investment banking firm. Of course, the situation is all gummed up right now. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter is a major brokerage firm and a major mutual fund co., so they are both buy and sell side. Ditto for all of the major brokerage firms. And Fidelity, a long time buy side firm, has brokerage services now, as does Vanguard. I have always been on the buy side in my career, though I certainly have nothing against the sell side. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with whether the analyst is buying or selling securities. You rarely hear a sell story, though they do exist. There are many reasons for that. First, most brokers and most people on the buyside are bullish most of the time. The market has bullish most of the time, so it makes sense. That causes me no problems. But, also, analysts sometimes lose access to cos. if they write a sell report on them. And they sure as heck have a problem getting any banking business out of them. That part I have a problem with.