Asset management can be very quantitative and buy side analysts rightfully deserve the quant title. Markowitz, risk management, quant equtity research, etc. these all fall under quant in my opinion.

I'll stick up for buy-side quant analysts. Depending on the shop, there can be some pretty sophisticated stuff going on. Besides, there are plenty of sell-side "quants" who do little more than descriptive statistics and marketing.

JabairuStork - I agree and am very keen to see more quant action going on, unfortunately the majority of traditional fund managers in the larger houses view quant analysis as little more than tracking errors or p/e screens! Its in the smaller houses where they do some good stuff (DE Shaw and First Quadrant are two names that spring to mind).I speak from a London perspective, & suspect our NY friends are somewhat further along in the evolutionary acceptance of quant investment management.cmr31 - Messrs Markowitz & Sharpe did apply some quantitative theory to finance although, as I understand it, the "innovation" was in the application and not in the development of the underlying math. Probably ground breaking stuff in the 1960s and 70s...The majority of quant work since then has been in derivative valuation & structuring and ,in my humble opinion, thats why the term "quant analyst" has been predominantly associated in this area. If you did a straw poll of the users of this forum I supect upwards of 75% would be from or hoping to enter the sell side & involved directly with options.

Bennyboy,your views on big vs. small asset mgmt. firms and quant research may be true for equity, but I think it's the reverse for fixed income. My impression is that the big shops that can afford the infrastructure of in-house quant teams are doing quite a bit of cutting-edge work, while the smaller shops are fundamentally driven and that their "quant" component is limited to maybe a duration number and a beta.

MJ, i agree with your explanation