Equity Research interview preparation

Sell side and buy side. 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. Answers lead with the point, then the mechanism, then the limitation.

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100 questions, mapped to the firms that asked them

Questions
100
Traced to a firm
72
Firms
45
Updated
September 2026
Asked at
All firmsMorningstar12Man Group6Balyasny Asset Management5BlackRock5Franklin Templeton5MSCI5Jefferies4Credit Suisse3Fidelity Investments3Moody's3Perella Weinberg Partners3Point723S&P Global3The Vanguard Group3Wellington Management3Advent International2Apollo Global Management2Bank of America2Carlyle Group2D.E. Shaw2Houlihan Lokey2HSBC2Piper Sandler2Sequoia Capital2State Street2Viking Global Investors2William Blair2AQR Capital Management1Baupost Group1BNY Mellon1Centerview Partners1Coatue Management1Goldman Sachs1Guggenheim Securities1Harris Williams1Insight Partners1Invesco1Mizuho1Moelis & Company1Morgan Stanley1PIMCO1Schroders1Scotiabank1T. Rowe Price1Truist 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
Showing 1–1 of 1 · filtered from 100Clear filters
  1. 064How would you compare two companies in the same sector trading at very different multiples?ValuationIntermediatetechnicalCredit SuisseGeneralist · Sydney · 2020

    Say this

    Assume the market is right until proven otherwise, then find the justification. Multiple gaps almost always reflect differences in growth, returns on capital, or risk. The investment question is whether the gap is larger than those differences warrant.

    Then walk it

    1. First decompose the gap. Is it growth, margin, returns on capital, capital intensity, cyclicality, balance sheet, or governance? Usually two or three of these explain most of it.
    2. Check the denominators are comparable. Different accounting policies, different fiscal years, different definitions of adjusted earnings, and different treatment of leases or capitalised costs all create fake gaps.
    3. Then quantify. If one grows 5 points faster with 10 points higher return on capital, how much premium does that justify? A regression of sector multiples against growth and ROIC gives a defensible expected multiple for each.
    4. The residual, the difference between the actual multiple and the regression-implied one, is the potential mispricing. That is where the idea lives.
    5. Then look for the non-fundamental explanations: index membership, liquidity, free float, ownership structure, or a governance discount for a controlled company. These are real and persistent.
    6. The conclusion should be specific: the cheaper one is cheap for reasons X and Y, which I think are permanent, or which I think the market is over-extrapolating. Either is a view.

    Where candidates lose it

    Assuming the cheaper one is the better investment. The default position should be that the market has a reason, and your job is to find it and then decide whether it is overstated.

    Expect next

    • What non-fundamental reasons could explain it?
    • Would you pair-trade them?
    • What would close the gap?

    Reported by candidates at Credit Suisse (Generalist, Sydney, 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.