sentence: employment securities analysts are generally employed in one of three capacities : sell-side analyst ( who work for a broker-dealer and indirectly for broker-dealer 's trading customers ) , buy-side analyst ( who work for institutional investors , such as hedge funds , mutual funds , pension funds , proprietary trading operations of bank and brokers , endowments , and insurance companies ) , and independent analysts , who work for firms which sell research to sell-side and/or buy-side firms , but who do not themselves engage in securities transactions .