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. 041How would you analyse an energy or commodity producer?Sector: energyHardtechnicalFTFranklin TempletonOil and Gas · San Mateo · 2024Perella Weinberg PartnersInvestment Banking · Houston · 2025

   Say this

   Position on the cost curve first, then reserves and production, then the balance sheet. The commodity price is the same for everyone, so the only company-specific variables are cost, volume and leverage.

   Then walk it

   1. Cost position is everything. A producer in the bottom quartile of the cost curve survives the trough and buys assets cheaply; a high-cost producer is a leveraged bet on the price.
   2. Reserves and reserve life: how long can they produce at current rates, what is the finding and development cost per barrel, and what is the decline rate on existing wells. Shale declines fast, so maintenance capital expenditure is enormous relative to conventional.
   3. Never value it on a spot price. Use a normalised or strip-based deck and show sensitivity across a price range. A low P/E on peak prices is the classic cyclical value trap.
   4. Balance sheet and hedging: leverage against trough cash flow, not current cash flow, and what percentage of next year's production is already hedged and at what price.
   5. Then capital discipline, which has become the sector's main equity story: are they returning cash or reinvesting into growth at the top of the cycle? The market now pays a premium for discipline.
   6. And the long-run structural question on terminal value: what do you assume about demand in twenty years? That assumption, not this year's earnings, is what most energy disagreements are actually about.

   Where candidates lose it

   Valuing on trailing earnings at current prices. Cyclicals invert the normal multiple logic: high multiples at the trough and low multiples at the peak are the correct pattern, not an anomaly.

   Expect next

   • What price deck would you use?
   • How do you normalise a cyclical?
   • How does hedging change your view?

   Reported by candidates at Franklin Templeton (Oil and Gas, San Mateo, 2024); Perella Weinberg Partners (Investment Banking, Houston, 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.