Investment Banking interview preparation
Every question below is either traced to a named firm from a public candidate report, or tagged at desk level when we could not trace it. Answers are written the way you would actually say them out loud — answer first, then the mechanism, then the limitation.
100 questions, mapped to the firms that asked them
- Questions
- 100
- Traced to a firm
- 100
- Firms
- 46
- Updated
- September 2026
017Given a $10 change in revenue, COGS, or CapEx, which has the highest impact on a DCF?MizuhoInvestment Banking · New York · 2026
Say this
CapEx, because $10 of CapEx reduces cash flow by the full $10 with no tax offset. Revenue and COGS both flow through the income statement, so their effect is only $10 times one minus the tax rate.
Then walk it
- A $10 increase in CapEx is a straight $10 reduction in unlevered free cash flow that year. Dollar for dollar.
- A $10 increase in revenue lifts EBIT by $10 only if there is no incremental cost, and after a 25% tax it is worth $7.50 of cash flow.
- A $10 increase in COGS reduces EBIT by $10 and costs $7.50 of cash flow after tax.
- So per dollar, CapEx bites hardest in the year it happens.
- But over the full forecast the ranking can flip, because a revenue change usually persists and compounds into the terminal value, while a one-off CapEx spike does not. If the question means a permanent change, revenue wins.
Where candidates lose it
Answering the arithmetic without asking whether the change is one-off or permanent. The interviewer is probing whether you understand that terminal value capitalises recurring changes. Ask the clarifying question, then answer both cases.
Expect next
- Is that change one-time or permanent in your answer?
- What if the CapEx is growth CapEx that lifts future revenue?
- Which one would you sensitise in the deck?
Reported by candidates at Mizuho (Investment Banking, New York, 2026). 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.