Buyside Snapshot

The Boston Company’s David Brooks, along with his fellow traders, is spending more time mining and analyzing data to find lesser-known stocks that can provide clients with above-average alpha and boost returns.

Since 2005, Perritt Capital Management's George Perritt has been building up a specialty: trading in large blocks, which now accounts for 35 percent of its activity. Here’s how the buysider manages it.

Bob Gauvain, head trader at Pioneer Investments, has been around the securities industry a long time. Starting as a messenger on the Boston Stock Exchange Bob Gauvain, he has risen to the rank of head trader, a role he's held for the last 21 years.

Rob Felvinci, director of portfolio management and trading at Spinnaker Trust, is sitting in the catbird seat, finally. After spending his entire trading career and life paying his dues in the concrete jungle that is New York City, the veteran trader and family man now can write his own ticket. And he has--trading Gotham for Portland, Maine.

Karen Heidelberger figured trading might be a career compatible with her personality after running a group inside Merrill Lynch's mergers and acquisitions department from 1996 to 1998 that tried to resolve conflicts ahead of time.

Andy Brooks is concerned about what he sees as inequities in stock markets. And as head of U.S. equity trading at T. Rowe Price Associates in Baltimore, he's doing something about it.

Longtime JonesTrading sales trader Tom Carter wants to be an educator. Jones, the incoming chairman of the Security Traders Association, is worried that investors misunderstand what traders do.

Kevin Chapman, head of trading at San Diego-based Allianz Global Investors, relishes the tough trades.

From everything in equities to absolutely nothing. That was how big the change was for Oklahoma City-based hedge fund Covenant Global Investors. As a multi-strategy global macro fund, Covenant can invest wherever it sees opportunity, and when the market began to tank, the fund lost its taste for stocks.

Sales traders instinctively know if they’re in the right seat, if they’re comfortable where they work. For Melissa “Missy” Heathcote, a migration from the sellside to the buyside might sound like a familiar story, but her move included a two-year stint in real estate in between. Those two years were long enough for the former Alex. Brown & Sons sales trader to discover that showing houses isn’t the same as shopping a large block—nor as rewarding.

Young traders--those who grew up with electronic gadgets--must be reminded to seek "the voice," of the sales trader, says Bob Luckey, a trading lifer.

After two years of development and testing, Robeco Investments is going live with a new trading tool. Director of trading Mark Kuzminskas' latest technology project marries data from portfolio managers' trading history with real-time stock analytics for the desk. The goal of the project was to optimize trade scheduling based on the PM's tendencies in order placement, using real-time analytics.

The James River runs right past Rob Glownia's office, reminding the head trader for RiverFront Investment Group every morning that, like the river, trading is dynamic, whether the job is managing investors' daily cash flows or longer-term trading strategies.

As head of Philadelphia International Advisors' (PIA) trading, Gordon Gary has the global markets covered, along with his colleague Anthony D'Amore. Gary covers the U.K. and the rest of Europe; D'Amore has Asia. Wrap trading is run by Brian Penhale.

It's the close proximity of portfolio management and trading at Heartland Advisors that makes the investment process tick for the Milwaukee-based manager with $5.2 billion in equities. Three traders and 14 portfolio managers and analysts work side by side in an open environment: The traders are sandwiched between the portfolio management teams. They are within earshot of each other.