- finance interview
Below are links to 5 common investment banking interview that most prospective analysts screw up during the interview, most of the questions are about investment in usa. I have interviewed hundreds of exceptional candidates. The average candidate I interview looks like this: top 25 university, 3.5+ GPA, finance or accounting classes, strong extra-curricular activity, member of a finance or investment club. Does that remind you of yourself? If so, then you need to check on the following Q&A to review the weak and strong answers because 80% of the people I interview do not answer these questions the way they should.
1. Where did the DOW close yesterday?
Weak Answer:
I am really not sure. I didn’t check to read the Wall Street Journal this morning because I was racing to this interview. I think about 9,000?
Strong Answer:
9,829 [of course, this was as of the date this post was written]
Commentary:
The point is that you need to know where the Dow Jones Industrial Average stands. This is a straightforward question designed to test how attentive you are to the markets. If you miss this answer, the interviewer will likely consider you a “pretender”, meaning that you don’t have a very strong interest in the market; you are just showing up for the interview. Although you don’t need to nail the exact number, the number you give should be within a range that the DOW has traded within the last 3 days. There is no excuse for not reading the Wall Street Journal the day of (or a least the day before) the interview.
If you really want to knock the ball out of the park, you should know where the S&P 500, NASDAQ, Russell 1000, FTSE, Nikkei, Hang Seng and Dax also closed.
2. Tell me a stock you like and why?
Weak Answer:
I really like Apple. Steve Jobs may be the best CEO in America. Even while he was sick, Apple did great. They have the best consumer electronic products out there. Their computers are great. The I-Phone is in a class by itself. They have iTunes. I know that they will probably start to play in the net book or e-book market soon as well. I just think the company has tremendous growth potential.
Strong Answer:
I really like Apple. Steve Jobs may be the best CEO in America. Even while he was sick, Apple did great. They have the best consumer electronic products out there. Their computers are great. The I-Phone is in a class by itself. They have iTunes.
I also believe that the market has not given them credit for areas of tremendous growth. Today the company trades at XX times trailing earnings, which is on the high side of its peer group, but that reflects the fact that the company is relatively underleveraged versus its peers. Even though I believe the stock is fairly valued based upon the company’s current mix of products, I think the market is disregarding their ability to play in the net book or e-book market. The Kindle is contributing $xx million to Amazon’s operating cash flow. If Apple could achieve 50% of that, and I think they can do significantly more, that would mean $y billion in additional market cap at their current multiples. That means the stock should see xx% growth simply from the e-book market without even considering net books. Read on »