Analysts: IT spending to drop in the wake of market turmoil

TowerGroup managing director Rob Hegarty estimates that IT spending on the sell side will decline by 14-16% from 2008 to 2009, but he expects buy-side IT spending to decline by only 3-4% in the same time period.

"The decline is much less sharp than that on the sell side because the buy side hasn't had the large-scale casualties of the sell side," says Hegarty. "Also the buy side continues to invest selectively in areas that were once handled by the sell side."

He adds that despite the market