Buy-Side and Sell-Side Analysts - An Analysis

Recently, I had opportunity to attend an SVForum SIG meetup on "Cloud M&A: Buy-side and Sell-side Dynamics in 2012 and Beyond". I had to get clear on the two concepts of Buy-Side and Sell-Side before I went into listen to the panelists. This exercise in learning itself was an eye-opener on how phrases get into usage in natural languages.

To begin with, Buy-Side and Sell-Side are not exactly what they seem. Let us start with some definitions, from Investopedia:

The side of Wall Street comprising the investing institutions such as mutual funds, pension funds and insurance firms that tend to buy large portions of securities for money-management purposes.

Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/buyside.asp

The retail brokers and research departments that sell securities and make recommendations for brokerage firms' customers.

Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sellside.asp

Buy-Side analysts seem to be really doing what the phrase seems to suggest: Analyze stocks and other instruments to help in potential, eventual, buying of the equities. The Sell-Side analysts, on the other hand, deal significantly with retail investors, and can enable or, influence, buy or sell decisions by the retail investors.

If both buy and sell decisions are enabled by these Sell-Side analysts, why call them only Sell-Side?

Google Maps and Bangalore's Namma Metro.

Google has seen it fit to map different parts of the world, and Bangalore, India, is no exception.

Recently, on 20 October 2011, a segment of the Bangalore Metro, between Baiyappanahalli & M G Road, went online for passenger traffic.

Namma Metro Route Map

While the route map of the Namma Metro, shown here and provided by the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL), offers a logical view that is helpful in a lot of contexts, it is sometimes also valuable to have a view that is superimposed on the geography-based map of Bangalore, of all the stations that currently serve passenger traffic. There is also a list of stations in the rail network, provided on the BMRCL web site.

It is said that the rail system offers free Wi-Fi connection on the train to all of its riders.

This Google map given below is a public map and I expect to update it to match the state of the Namma Metro in the coming months and years.

View Namma Metro (Bengaluru) Google Map in a larger map

Other information Namma Metro on the Internet:
Namma Metro on Wikipedia.
Bangalore Metro Map by MapsofIndia.com.