A financial analyst is a specialist responsible for the assessment of the viability, stability and profitability of a business, sub-business or project. Simply put, financical analysts are hired to study and assess the value and financial performance of companies. An analyst will write reports on the companies they are supposed to cover, trying to describe the businesses and their opinion of the company's investment potential, usually from a fundamental analysis standpoint. They also summarize that report with a rating, such as "buy", "sell", "market perform", "overweight", "hold", etc.