PICK-AND-SHOVEL PLAY

A strategy in which investments are made in companies that are providers of needed equipment for an industry, rather than in the end product of an industry. A pick-and-shovel play, in practice, could be within the oil industry; an investor purchases stock in a company that manufactures seismic data equipment that exploration and production (E&P) companies need to find new oil and gas deposits, rather than on the E&P company itself.