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.
100 questions, mapped to the firms that asked them
- Questions
- 100
- Traced to a firm
- 72
- Firms
- 45
- Updated
- September 2026
072What is your view of the market right now?MSCIReal Estate · Mumbai · 2015MizuhoSales and Trading · New York · 2026InvescoAsset Management · Atlanta · 2023
Say this
Give a position, a reason, and an acknowledgement of what would prove you wrong. Structure it as valuation, earnings, policy and positioning, then land on one view rather than surveying both sides.
Then walk it
- Valuation: where the index multiple sits against its own history and against bond yields. One number, stated precisely.
- Earnings: what growth is embedded in consensus for the next year, and whether revisions are rising or falling. Revisions direction matters more than the level.
- Policy: what the central bank is expected to do and what is already priced.
- Positioning and sentiment: are investors crowded into the same trade? Extremes in positioning are contrarian signals.
- Then commit: 'so I would be cautious on the index but I think the dispersion beneath it is unusually wide, which favours stock selection over direction.' A view with nuance beats a survey.
- Then the falsifier: what would change your mind, and what you are watching. Interviewers distrust conviction without error bars as much as they distrust having no view at all.
Where candidates lose it
Giving a balanced 'on one hand, on the other' answer with no conclusion. That is the safest-sounding response and the worst-scoring one. Having a view you can defend and revise is the job.
Expect next
- What would change your mind?
- Where would you be putting money?
- What is the biggest risk nobody is talking about?
Reported by candidates at MSCI (Real Estate, Mumbai, 2015); Mizuho (Sales and Trading, New York, 2026); Invesco (Asset Management, Atlanta, 2023). 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.