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. 052What would you ask a CEO or CFO in a one-on-one meeting?Research processHardsuperdayMoody'sCorporate Finance · New York · 2018

   Say this

   Ask what you cannot get from the filings: intent, trade-offs and things they have decided not to do. Never ask for a number that is already disclosed.

   Then walk it

   1. Capital allocation intent: what returns do you require from an acquisition, and how does that compare to buying back your own stock at today's price? The answer reveals whether they think in returns or in empire.
   2. Trade-offs: if you had to choose between defending margin and defending share next year, which do you choose? This forces a real answer rather than a rehearsed one.
   3. Competitive reality: which competitor worries you most and why? CEOs answer this more candidly than they should, and it is genuinely informative.
   4. Leading indicators: what internal metric do you watch weekly that we do not see? Sometimes they name it, and now you know what to ask about every quarter.
   5. Then the question that surfaces the risk: what would have to go wrong for you to miss the plan? The hesitation matters as much as the answer.
   6. Then listen for what they avoid. In a thirty-minute meeting the topics they steer away from are usually the ones worth modelling.

   Where candidates lose it

   Asking questions answered in the last filing. Access is scarce and wasting it marks you as unprepared. Every question should be about judgement, intent or something not disclosed.

   Expect next

   • What if their answers contradicted the filings?
   • How much weight do you put on management meetings?
   • How would you verify what they told you?

   Reported by candidates at Moody's (Corporate Finance, New York, 2018). Source: Wall Street Oasis.

2. 053How would you check a company's claims independently?Research processHardtechnicalPoint72Investment Research · New York · 2026

   Say this

   Triangulate from sources the company does not control: customers, suppliers, competitors, ex-employees, regulatory filings, import and export data, job postings and pricing you can observe yourself.

   Then walk it

   1. Channel checks: talk to distributors, customers and competitors. If a company claims it is taking share, the people losing it will know.
   2. Alternative data: web traffic, app downloads, credit card panels, satellite imagery of car parks or storage tanks, shipping and customs data. Each is noisy alone but they corroborate.
   3. Public records nobody reads: regulatory filings in other jurisdictions, patent filings, litigation dockets, local permits, and the subsidiary accounts filed in countries with granular disclosure.
   4. Hiring data: job postings reveal expansion plans, technology stacks and which functions are growing, usually before anything is announced.
   5. Cross-check within the filings themselves: segment disclosures, the tax footnote and geographic breakdowns often disagree with the narrative in the press release.
   6. And the boundary that matters professionally: everything must be from public or properly sourced channels, with no material non-public information from an insider. In a hedge fund interview, saying that unprompted is the right instinct, because it is a compliance question as much as a research one.

   Where candidates lose it

   Not mentioning the compliance boundary. In a multi-manager or hedge fund interview, an enthusiastic answer about getting information from insiders is disqualifying. Name public sourcing and expert-network rules explicitly.

   Expect next

   • What are the compliance limits on expert calls?
   • How do you weigh noisy alternative data?
   • Give me an example where a check changed your view.

   Reported by candidates at Point72 (Investment Research, New York, 2026). Source: Wall Street Oasis.

3. 081How would you initiate coverage on a new company?Research processIntermediatetechnicalSell-side research

   Say this

   Read the last three years of filings and transcripts, build the model from drivers, map the competitive landscape, talk to the company and the channel, then decide what your differentiated view is before writing a word.

   Then walk it

   1. Primary documents first: three years of annual filings, the last eight quarterly transcripts, the investor day materials and the proxy for incentives. The transcripts tell you what management has promised and how the questions have changed.
   2. Build the model from drivers and reconcile it to reported history. If you cannot rebuild the last two years from your drivers, your model is wrong.
   3. Map the industry: who competes, what share each has, how the value chain splits economics, what the customers care about. Read the competitors' filings, because they describe your company from the outside.
   4. Channel work: customers, distributors, former employees, industry consultants. This is where a differentiated view most often comes from.
   5. Then form the thesis. An initiation with no variant view is a description, and nobody reads it. Decide what you believe that consensus does not, and structure the note around defending it.
   6. Then the deliverable: rating, target, earnings forecasts that differ from consensus in a specific place, the key debates set out fairly, and the risks. And a clear statement of what would change your mind.

   Where candidates lose it

   Describing a document-gathering exercise with no thesis. An initiation is judged on whether it says something. Leading with the variant view rather than the process is the answer that sounds like an analyst.

   Expect next

   • How long would that take you?
   • Where does the differentiated view usually come from?
   • How would you handle initiating with a sell rating?
4. 090How did you arrive at the assumptions in your case study?Research processHardcase studyDED.E. ShawGeneralist · New York · 2025Houlihan LokeyInvestment Banking · Richmond · 2025

   Say this

   Each assumption should trace to something external: a historical rate, a disclosed contract, an industry data point, a peer's experience. Name the source for each, and say which ones you are least confident about.

   Then walk it

   1. Go through them in order of importance to the answer, not in model order. The interviewer cares about the two that drive the result.
   2. For each, give the anchor: 'I used 6 percent price growth because that is what they have taken in each of the last four years and the contracts reprice annually to an index.'
   3. Where you had no data, say so explicitly and explain the logic you substituted. Inventing a source is fatal; reasoning openly from a gap is respected.
   4. Distinguish the assumptions that matter from the ones that do not. 'The tax rate assumption is immaterial; the retention assumption drives 70 percent of the value' shows you understand your own model.
   5. Present the sensitivity around the critical ones rather than defending a point estimate. The honest position is a range with a most likely case.
   6. And volunteer your least confident assumption before they find it. Doing so converts a vulnerability into evidence of self-awareness.

   Where candidates lose it

   Defending every assumption equally, or saying 'that is what management guided'. Guidance is an input to be tested, not a source of truth. Trace assumptions to independent evidence wherever possible.

   Expect next

   • Which assumption are you least confident about?
   • What if that assumption is 20 percent wrong?
   • Where did you disagree with management's guidance?

   Reported by candidates at D.E. Shaw (Generalist, New York, 2025); Houlihan Lokey (Investment Banking, Richmond, 2025). 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.