Financial Analysis interview preparation

The three statements, working capital, ratios, forecasting, variance analysis, costing, capital budgeting, valuation and the modelling and Excel work that fills the day, plus the fit questions about why this seat. 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 — we do not invent attributions.

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Question bank

100 questions, mapped to the firms that asked them

Questions
100
Traced to a firm
42
Firms
28
Updated
September 2026
Asked at
All firmsMoody's7Bain Capital3State Street3Ares Management2BlackRock2D.E. Shaw2Morgan Stanley2Oaktree Capital Management2S&P Global2Bridgewater Associates1Citadel1Franklin Templeton1Golub Capital1Harris Williams1Houlihan Lokey1J.P. Morgan1Jane Street1Marshall Wace1Millennium Management1Morningstar1PIMCO1Sycamore Partners1Truist Securities1Two Sigma1Vanguard1Wellington Management1Wells Fargo Securities1Wolverine Trading1
Topic
All topicsThree statements9Accounting policy and standards5Working capital and cash7Ratio analysis8Forecasting and budgeting9Variance and management reporting7Unit economics and costing8Capital budgeting7Cost of capital and valuation7Markets and rates5Modelling, Excel and data8Business partnering6Brainteasers and estimation4Fit and career10
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Type
AnyTechnicalCaseBrainteaserMarket viewFit
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  1. 029Two companies both report 18 percent ROE. Which one would you rather own, and what would you ask to decide?Ratio analysisIntermediatetechnicalCorporate financeKPO research support

    Say this

    I would decompose both. The one that gets to 18 percent on operating performance with modest leverage is worth more than the one that gets there with debt, because the first is repeatable and the second is amplified.

    Then walk it

    1. First cut, DuPont. Company A: 14 percent net margin, 0.9 times asset turnover, 1.4 times equity multiplier. Company B: 3 percent margin, 2.0 times turnover, 3.0 times multiplier. Both land at roughly 18. Only one survives a bad year.
    2. Second cut, ROCE and ROIC, because that removes the leverage effect. If A earns 20 percent ROCE and B earns 8, the question is over.
    3. Third cut, cash. Operating cash flow over EBITDA for both. An 18 percent ROE that never converts to cash is an accrual, not a return.
    4. Fourth, sustainability. Reinvestment rate and the growth runway. A 25 percent ROIC business that can only reinvest 20 percent of earnings is worth less than a 19 percent ROIC business that can reinvest all of it.
    5. Fifth, the denominators. Has either shrunk equity through buybacks or write-offs? An 18 percent ROE on an equity base halved by impairment is not a performance.
    6. So the questions I would ask: what is ROCE, what is net debt to EBITDA, what is the cash conversion, and how much of earnings can be reinvested at that rate. Those four settle it.

    Where candidates lose it

    Picking one before decomposing. There is no answer from ROE alone, and the interviewer is testing whether you know that. Give the two contrasting DuPont profiles with numbers, then name the four questions.

    Expect next

    • What if the leveraged one is in a regulated utility?
    • How much would you pay for each?
    • Which would a lender prefer?

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.