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

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Type

AnyTechnicalCaseFitBrainteaserMarket view

1. 073How would you analyse an Indian bank versus a US bank?Sector: financialsHardtechnicalCSCredit SuisseInvestment Banking · Mumbai · 2020

   Say this

   The framework is the same, price to book against return on equity, but the drivers differ. Indian banks are a credit growth and asset quality story with a large public sector overhang; US banks are a rate cycle, fee income and capital return story.

   Then walk it

   1. Common framework: net interest margin, loan growth, cost-to-income, credit costs, and capital adequacy. Value on price to adjusted book against sustainable ROE.
   2. India-specific: asset quality dominates. Gross and net non-performing assets, provision coverage, slippage ratio and restructured book are the numbers the market trades on. The 2015 to 2020 asset quality review cycle is the reference point for why.
   3. Structural difference: a large public sector banking system with different governance, capitalisation and lending incentives from the private banks. The valuation gap between the two groups is persistent and is really a governance and growth gap.
   4. Growth profile: Indian banks operate in an underpenetrated credit market with structurally higher nominal loan growth, so the market pays for growth in a way it does not in the US.
   5. Funding: the CASA ratio, the share of low-cost current and savings deposits, is the key competitive advantage in India and is watched closely. In the US the equivalent focus is on deposit beta.
   6. US-specific: fee and trading income is a much larger share of revenue for the large banks, regulatory capital and stress testing drive buybacks, and the rate cycle drives net interest income more sharply.

   Where candidates lose it

   Applying a US framework wholesale. An India-based interviewer will expect CASA, slippages, provision coverage and the public-versus-private distinction by name. Knowing the local vocabulary is the test.

   Expect next

   • What is the CASA ratio and why does it matter?
   • Why do private banks trade at a premium to public sector banks?
   • How do you forecast credit costs through a cycle?

   Reported by candidates at Credit Suisse (Investment Banking, Mumbai, 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.