An analyst employed by an entity, such as a mutual fund, that invests on its own accounts. Unlike that of the sell-side analysts employed by brokerage firms, research produced by buy-side analysts is generally unavailable outside of the firm that hired the analyst. A sell-side analyst's focus when analyzing possible investments is to see whether the investment should be recommended to the firm's clients, while a buy-side analyst would only be interested in analyzing whether the investment is suitable for the firm's investment strategy and portfolio.