Derivatives Foundation interview preparation

The full derivatives syllabus from no-arbitrage pricing through the Greeks, the volatility surface, swaps, CDS and clearing, plus the Indian index-options market. Every question is either traced to a named firm from a public candidate report, or tagged at desk level when we could not trace it - we do not invent attributions.

Jump to the question bank
Question bank

100 questions, mapped to the firms that asked them

Questions
100
Traced to a firm
29
Firms
19
Updated
September 2026
Asked at
All firmsMorgan Stanley4Nomura4Akuna Capital2Amundi2HSBC2PIMCO2Bank of America1Barclays1Citadel1DRW1Goldman Sachs1Jane Street1Millennium Management1Mizuho1Old Mission Capital1RBC Capital Markets1Scotiabank1UBS1Wells Fargo Securities1
Topic
All topicsForwards and futures10Options basics8Option pricing7The Greeks10Volatility7Option strategies9Swaps and rates7Credit derivatives4Market structure and clearing6Indian derivatives8Trading and markets9Brainteasers6Fit9
Level
AnyCoreIntermediateHard
Type
AnyTechnicalCaseMarket viewBrainteaserFit
Showing 1–1 of 1 · filtered from 100Clear filters
  1. 017An option buyer has limited loss and unlimited gain. Why does anyone take the other side?Options basicsIntermediatetechnicalProp trading firmsMarket making

    Say this

    Because the seller gets paid, and on average the premium is more than the payout. Buyers are buying insurance and insurers earn a premium for bearing tail risk. The payoff shape is asymmetric but the expected value is not the same as the shape.

    Then walk it

    1. The empirical fact first: implied volatility exceeds subsequent realised volatility most of the time, in most markets. That wedge — the variance risk premium — is the seller's edge, and it is typically a couple of volatility points on index options.
    2. Why it exists: investors are structurally short the market and want protection, and protection pays off precisely when the rest of the portfolio is losing. That correlation makes it worth paying above fair value for, exactly like fire insurance.
    3. So the seller is not stupid, they are an insurer. The trade works the way insurance works: small steady income, occasional large loss, positive expectancy if priced right and sized right.
    4. The real risk is not the expectancy, it is the path. A short option book has negative skew, so it grinds up and then gives back years of premium in a week. February 2018 wiped out short-vol products in a single session on a move that was not even a large one by historical standards.
    5. Which is why sellers hedge. A market maker is not taking a directional view; they sell the option, delta hedge it, and try to earn the spread between implied and realised volatility. The naked seller and the hedged seller are completely different businesses.
    6. The honest framing: buyers pay for convexity and certainty of maximum loss, sellers earn a premium for supplying it. Neither is a free lunch, and the seller's version has a fatter left tail than a Sharpe ratio will show you.

    Where candidates lose it

    Answering 'because most options expire worthless'. That is a statistic about frequency, not about expected value, and an interviewer will immediately ask whether you would sell 1-in-1000 lottery tickets at any price. Name the variance risk premium and the negative skew of the seller's return.

    Expect next

    • So would you rather be systematically long or short volatility?
    • What happened to short-volatility products in February 2018?
    • How does a market maker sell options without taking a directional view?

Firm tags come from public, anonymous candidate reports on Wall Street Oasis: strong signal, not sworn testimony. Firms are named as the places a question was reported, not as partners of Fin Maverick. Answers are written for this page to show how to think out loud; they are not scripts to recite.