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. 058How is sell-side research paid for, and how has that changed?Industry knowledgeHardtechnicalSell-side research

   Say this

   Historically it was bundled into trading commissions. MiFID II in Europe forced research to be priced and paid for separately, which shrank budgets, cut analyst headcount and concentrated payments on fewer providers.

   Then walk it

   1. The old model: asset managers paid commissions on trades and the broker provided research, corporate access and execution as a bundle. Research looked free and was not.
   2. MiFID II required unbundling in Europe from 2018, so asset managers had to pay for research explicitly, either from their own profit and loss or from a client-funded research payment account.
   3. The consequence: most large managers chose to pay from their own P&L, which made research a direct cost, so budgets fell sharply. Coverage of small and mid caps thinned because it was not worth paying for.
   4. The industry consolidated. Payments concentrated on a handful of top-ranked analysts per sector, and many junior roles disappeared.
   5. Other revenue routes remain important: corporate access, which is arranging meetings between companies and investors, bespoke work, and the connection to the equity capital markets franchise, since a bank with a strong analyst wins more IPO mandates.
   6. Rules have since been loosened in places, including moves to permit rebundling in the UK and EU, so the direction is not settled. Knowing that there has been a partial reversal is what separates a current answer from a textbook one.

   Where candidates lose it

   Not knowing about unbundling at all. If you are interviewing for a sell-side research seat, the economics of the product you would be producing is fair game, and not knowing it suggests you have not thought about the industry's direction.

   Expect next

   • What has that done to coverage of small caps?
   • What is corporate access?
   • Is research a profit centre?
2. 060Why do sell-side ratings skew toward buy, and how should an investor read that?Industry knowledgeHardtechnicalSell-side researchAsset management

   Say this

   Structural incentives. Maintaining management access, supporting the bank's corporate relationships, and the fact that most clients are long-only and cannot act on a sell. So the information is in the changes, not the levels.

   Then walk it

   1. Access: a sell rating can cost the analyst management meetings, which degrades the product they sell to clients.
   2. Banking relationship: although research and banking are formally separated, a hostile rating complicates the wider corporate relationship, and analysts are aware of that.
   3. Client base: most institutional clients are long-only and can only buy or not buy. A sell recommendation is actionable for only a minority, so it is worth less commercially.
   4. The result is a distribution heavily weighted to buy and hold, where a hold often functions as a sell and a sell is a strong statement.
   5. So the way to read it: ignore the absolute rating and watch the changes. A downgrade from buy to hold from a respected analyst carries far more information than the rating itself.
   6. And read the estimate revisions rather than the words. The numbers move before the ratings do, and estimate revision momentum has historically been a more reliable signal than the published recommendation.

   Where candidates lose it

   Treating the skew as a scandal rather than an incentive structure. The sophisticated answer explains the mechanism and then converts it into a practical rule: trade the revisions, not the ratings.

   Expect next

   • So what signal do you actually use?
   • How does that change how you write a note?
   • What is estimate revision momentum?

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.