Equity Research interview preparation

Questions

100

Traced to a firm

72

Firms

45

Updated

September 2026

Asked at

All firmsMorningstar12Man Group6Balyasny Asset Management5BLBlackRock5FTFranklin Templeton5MSCI5Jefferies4CSCredit Suisse3Fidelity Investments3Moody's3Perella Weinberg Partners3Point723S&P Global3The Vanguard Group3WMWellington Management3Advent International2Apollo Global Management2Bank of America2Carlyle Group2DED.E. Shaw2Houlihan Lokey2HSBC2Piper Sandler2Sequoia Capital2SSState Street2Viking Global Investors2WBWilliam Blair2ACAQR Capital Management1BGBaupost Group1BMBNY Mellon1Centerview Partners1Coatue Management1Goldman Sachs1GSGuggenheim Securities1HWHarris Williams1Insight Partners1Invesco1Mizuho1Moelis & Company1MSMorgan Stanley1PIMCO1SCSchroders1Scotiabank1T. Rowe Price1TSTruist Securities1

Topic

All topicsResearch process9Stock pitch6Company analysis8Investment philosophy5Valuation14Modelling2Portfolio and risk8Macro8Sector knowledge2Accounting8Career and fit12Industry knowledge6Quantitative research1Sector: technology3Sector: consumer1Sector: healthcare1Sector: energy1Sector: financials2Sector: industrials1Case and estimation2

Level

AnyCoreIntermediateHard

Type

AnyTechnicalCaseFitBrainteaserMarket view

1. 094How would you size a market from the bottom up?Case and estimationIntermediatetechnicalAdvent InternationalPrivate Equity · Boston · 2022Viking Global InvestorsQuantitative Research · New York · 2024

   Say this

   Count the customers and multiply by what each can spend. Number of potential buyers, times realistic annual spend per buyer, times the share of that spend your product can address. Then sanity-check against a top-down figure.

   Then walk it

   1. Define the buyer precisely. Not 'all businesses' but 'US companies with more than 500 employees in regulated industries', which you can actually count from public data.
   2. Estimate spend per buyer from observable evidence: the company's own average contract value, a competitor's disclosed pricing, or what the buyer currently spends on the alternative.
   3. Multiply, then apply a realistic ceiling on penetration. No product reaches 100 percent of its theoretical market, and assuming it does is how addressable markets become fiction.
   4. Cross-check top-down: industry revenue from trade bodies or the sum of the competitors' revenues. If bottom-up and top-down differ by more than a factor of two, one of your assumptions is wrong and you should find out which.
   5. Distinguish total addressable market, the serviceable portion given your product and geography, and the realistically obtainable share. Most published figures quote the first and imply the third.
   6. Then state the number as a range with the two assumptions that drive it, and show what the answer is if each is halved.

   Where candidates lose it

   Citing a published market size figure. Those are almost always top-down, commissioned, and inflated. The whole point of bottom-up is that you build it from countable units and can defend each step.

   Expect next

   • How many books were sold in the US last year?
   • What penetration is realistic?
   • How much of that is in the current share price?

   Reported by candidates at Advent International (Private Equity, Boston, 2022); Viking Global Investors (Quantitative Research, New York, 2024). Source: Wall Street Oasis.

2. 095How many books were sold in the US last year?Case and estimationIntermediatetechnicalAdvent InternationalPrivate Equity · Boston · 2022

   Say this

   Around 700 million to 1 billion. Take 330 million people, assume roughly half buy any books at all, and an average of four to six books a year among buyers, which gives 650 million to 1 billion.

   Then walk it

   1. Population: 330 million. Strip out young children, so call it 280 million potential buyers.
   2. Participation: perhaps half buy at least one book in a year. That is 140 million buyers, and I would flag that this is my least certain assumption.
   3. Intensity: the distribution is skewed. Most buyers purchase two or three, a small group of heavy readers buys twenty or more. An average of five across buyers is reasonable.
   4. 140 million times 5 gives 700 million units.
   5. Then adjust for segments I have not counted: educational and textbook purchases driven by institutions rather than individuals, and gift buying which is already inside the per-person figure. Textbooks might add 50 to 100 million.
   6. So call it 750 million to 1 billion units, and note that published industry figures for US print unit sales sit around 750 million, so the estimate holds. I would state the two assumptions the answer is most sensitive to: participation rate and books per reader.

   Where candidates lose it

   Not flagging the skewed distribution. Using a simple population-wide average ignores that book buying is concentrated in heavy readers, and noticing that is the analytical content. Also, always name which assumption drives the answer.

   Expect next

   • Which assumption is your answer most sensitive to?
   • How would you check it?
   • Now size the market in dollars.

   Reported by candidates at Advent International (Private Equity, Boston, 2022). Source: Wall Street Oasis.

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.