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. 002What moves a stock?Research processIntermediatetechnicalBalyasny Asset ManagementEquity Hedge · Chicago · 2021

   Say this

   Changes in expectations, not the level of results. A stock moves when the market revises its forecast of future earnings, or revises the multiple it will pay for them. Everything else is noise around those two.

   Then walk it

   1. Price equals earnings times multiple. So there are exactly two levers, and every catalyst works through one of them.
   2. Earnings revisions are the bigger driver over any meaningful horizon. That is why the sell-side obsesses over guidance and why a beat with a cut to guidance sells off.
   3. Multiple changes come from the rate environment, from perceived risk, and from a change in the durability of growth. A company that convinces the market its growth is recurring rather than cyclical gets re-rated without changing a single forecast.
   4. In the short run, positioning and flows matter enormously. A crowded long with everyone already in it can fall on good news because there is nobody left to buy.
   5. So the practical question for a research analyst is never 'are results good' but 'are results better than what is discounted'. That is why the expectations framework is the job.

   Where candidates lose it

   Answering 'earnings' and stopping. That misses the multiple entirely, and it misses the central insight that it is the delta versus expectations that matters, not the absolute result.

   Expect next

   • How do you think about valuation drivers?
   • Why would a stock fall on a beat?
   • How do you measure what is priced in?

   Reported by candidates at Balyasny Asset Management (Equity Hedge, Chicago, 2021). Source: Wall Street Oasis.

2. 004Pitch me a stock.Stock pitchIntermediateevery roundMan GroupEquity Hedge · London · 2016MSMorgan StanleySales and Trading · Tokyo · 2025Balyasny Asset ManagementGeneralist · New York · 2020

   Say this

   Recommendation and target first, business in two sentences, then the variant view, the catalyst, the risk, and what would make you wrong. Ninety seconds, and the variant view is the only part that counts.

   Then walk it

   1. Open with the trade: 'Long X at 40, target 55, about 35 percent upside over 12 to 18 months.' Never build up to the recommendation.
   2. Two sentences on what the business actually does, so the interviewer knows you are not pitching a ticker.
   3. The variant view: what do you believe that consensus does not, and why are you right? 'The street models 8 percent growth; I think it is 14 because the new contract has not been added to numbers yet.' Quantify the gap.
   4. The catalyst and timing: what makes the market agree with you, and roughly when. A view with no catalyst is a value trap.
   5. Valuation: what multiple you are paying, what the peers trade at, what the reverse DCF implies.
   6. Risks and the falsifier: the two things that break the thesis, and the specific data point you would watch. Ending on what would make you wrong is what makes an analyst sound honest rather than promotional.

   Where candidates lose it

   Pitching a household mega-cap with a thesis lifted from the financial press. If the reason is in the newspaper, it is in the price. Pick something slightly off the beaten path and know its numbers cold.

   Expect next

   • Are you sure that thesis can be backed up? What if their costs do not fall?
   • What is the bear case?
   • How would you hedge it?

   Reported by candidates at Man Group (Equity Hedge, London, 2016); Morgan Stanley (Sales and Trading, Tokyo, 2025); Balyasny Asset Management (Generalist, New York, 2020). 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.