Now as would have noticed stock market provides a medium for business man to raise money for the business. However some might say, why not go to bank or friends & family. Well there are various options available to businessman to finance his venture and one of them is stock market, depending on many factor (to be discussed later on in detail) he choose stock market over others. Similarly many people have spare money and they want to deploy it safety for future needs.
So as such people have lot of options they can keep it cash (in home or bank) or invest in debt i.e. government or company bond where safety of money is guaranteed, or invest in stock market and others assets (like gold, real estate). However why one chooses stock market over others is simply a case of better return over long term compared to other asset class.
Now if somebody decides to invest in stock market, he would typical go to a stock broker, he is an intermediary between stock market and individual investor. However typical stock market has hundreds of company, so for normal investor it’s difficult to figure which company to buy hence he typically ask broker for recommendation and broker gives the same in return. These recommendations are in turn generated by individual working for broker and they are called Research Analyst.
So Research Analyst is individual that generates stock investment recommendation after undergoing thorough analysis of company by way of Business Model Analysis and Financial Analysis. Post analysis Research Analyst arrives at fair value of company’s stock price and accordingly he advises investor whether a particular stock is worthy of investment decision at current price or not.
That’s just one role of RA in the whole stock market that we have described above, there are numerous role and job opportunity available for RA in the industry, that we will check it out in our next posting.