Investment / Portfolio Analyst

Career Area: Finance

Occupation Group: Financial Analysis

Salary

Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.

An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.

A typical Investment / Portfolio Analyst earns the following wages (national and state):

State

The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $84,620

National

The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $83,579

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

Advises individuals and companies about investments. Typically works with a collection of investments called a portfolio, though can also advise clients about individual investments. Studies trends that impact investments and writes reports regarding economic and business changes and activities that affect the value of investments. Can also be involved in the selling of investments, such as stocks. Works mainly in investment firms, though can also be employed in lending institutions, corporate finance departments, banks or insurance companies.

Employment Trends

The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.

Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:

Skills

A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:

Baseline Skills

The following are baseline skills every Investment / Portfolio Analyst is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:

• Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
• Microsoft Excel: Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications.
• Research: Experience performing creative and systematic work to understand a product, market, or customer, either before building a new solution, or to troubleshoot an existing issue
• Teamwork / Collaboration: Experience working in collaborative efforts with a team to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way.
• Detail-Oriented: A detail oriented person is someone who pays attention to the details and can make a conscious effort to understand causes instead of just the effects, and that does this in a second nature type of way.

Specialized Skills

These skills are specific to working in this career:

• Financial Analysis: Financial statement analysis (or financial analysis) is the process of reviewing and analyzing a company's financial statements to make better economic decisions.
• Portfolio Management: Portfolio management is the art and science of making decisions about investment mix and policy, matching investments to objectives,asset allocationfor individuals and institutions, and balancing risk against performance.
• Budgeting: Experience planning how the financial resources of a business or department are to be allocated during the next business period.
• Accounting: Experience maintaining and verifying the business records of a person or business and preparing forms and reports for financial purposes.
• Economics: Economics (UK English: , ; US English: , ) is a social science concerned chiefly with description and analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

Distinguishing Skills

Any Investment / Portfolio Analyst that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:

• Investment Strategy: Working experience designing a set of rules, behaviors or procedures to guide investors' selection of an investment portfolio.
• Corporate Finance: Corporate finance is the area of finance dealing with the sources of funding and the capital structure of corporations, the actions that managers take to increase the value of the firm to the shareholders, and the tools and analysis used to allocate financial resources.
• Credit Risk: A credit risk is the risk of default on a debt that may arise from a borrower failing to make required payments.
• Fixed Income: Working experience of Fixed Income, which is a type of investment in which real return rates or periodic income is received at regular intervals and at reasonably predictable levels. Fixed-income investments can be used to diversify one's portfolio, as they pose less risk than equities and derivative investments.
• Variance Analysis: Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is a collection of statistical models used to analyze the differences among group means and their associated procedures (such as variation among and between groups), developed by statistician and evolutionary biologist Ronald Fisher.

Experience

This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Common Job Titles

It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:

• Portfolio Manager
• Financial Analyst
• Senior Financial Analyst
• Investment Analyst
• Portfolio Analyst

Similar Occupations

If you are interested in exploring similar occupations, you may want to research the following job titles:

• Fund / Investment Accountant