Example companies - Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Citi, Deutsche Bank, ICICI Securities, Motilal Oswal, Axis Capital, Edelweiss, HDFC Securities, Kotak Investment Banking 

Profile Tag : Financial Analyst | Equity Dealer & Portfolio Manager |Quantitave Analyst

• Walk me through the three financial statements.

• How are the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement connected?

• What is working capital, and why is it important?

• How do you calculate free cash flow (FCF)?

• What is EBITDA, and why is it used?

• Explain depreciation and how it affects financial statements.

• What’s the difference between capital expenditure (CapEx) and operating expenditure (OpEx)?

• What are deferred taxes?

• How do you assess a company’s financial health?

• What are accruals and provisions?

• How do you forecast revenue in a financial model?

• What Excel formulas do you frequently use in financial analysis?

• How do you ensure accuracy in your models?

• How do you handle circular references in Excel?

• Describe a complex model you’ve built.

• How do you use scenario analysis or what-if analysis?

• Explain how you would model seasonality in sales.

• How would you evaluate whether to invest in a company?

• A company’s revenue increased, but net income decreased — why might that happen?

• What metrics would you use to compare two companies in the same industry?

• How would you assess the risk level of a business or project?

• How would you approach budgeting for a new product launch?

• Tell me about a time you analyzed complex data to make a recommendation.

• Describe a situation when your financial analysis influenced a key decision.

• What are the different valuation methods? (e.g., DCF, comparables, precedent transactions)

• Walk me through a Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model.

• How do you calculate the WACC (Weighted Average Cost of Capital)?

• What’s the difference between enterprise value (EV) and equity value?

• How do changes in interest rates affect valuation?

• How do you analyze a company’s P/E ratio?

• What are sensitivity analyses, and how do you perform them?

• Explain the concept of terminal value in DCF.

• What are multiples used in valuation, and when would you use each?

• How do you prioritize tasks when working on multiple projects?

• Tell me about a time you identified an error in a financial report.

• Describe a situation where you had to present findings to non-finance stakeholders.

• How do you handle tight deadlines or conflicting priorities?

• How do macroeconomic factors like inflation or interest rates affect your analysis?

• What are key financial metrics for a SaaS business?

• How would you analyze the performance of a bank or NBFC?

• What KPIs would you track in a manufacturing company?

• What’s your view on current stock market trends?

• How does ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) impact investment analysis?

• How do you stay updated with financial markets?

• What financial software tools have you used (e.g., Bloomberg, Power BI, Tableau)?

• What’s the biggest risk for investors right now?

• What are the different types of orders in the stock market? (Limit, Stop-loss, Market, IOC, etc.)

• Explain how a trade is executed on NSE/BSE.

• What is circuit filter and price band?

• What is difference between cash and F&O segment?

• How do you calculate margin requirements for intraday and delivery?

• What is BTST and STBT?

• What happens when a client fails to maintain margin?

• How do you track market trends during live trading?

• What indicators or charts do you follow?

• How do you handle multiple client orders during volatile market hours?

• What are your strategies to minimize client losses during market crash?

• Which trading platforms have you used (e.g., ODIN, NEST, NSE NOW, Bloomberg, Reuters)?

• How do you explain a market order or trade confirmation to a non-technical client?

• How do you ensure compliance while placing client trades?

• What steps will you take if a client complains about a wrong order execution?

• Describe a time when you managed a high-stress trading day.

• How do you calculate realized and unrealized gains?

• What is your method of reconciling trade mismatches?

• How do you determine portfolio exposure to a specific sector or stock?

• What’s your investment philosophy? Value, growth, or a mix?

• How do you construct a portfolio for a moderate risk investor?

• Explain your process for stock selection.

• How do you determine asset allocation between equity, debt, and alternatives?

• Which metrics do you consider before buying a stock (P/E, ROE, Debt/Equity, etc.)?

• How do you rebalance portfolios when markets are highly volatile?

• How do you measure portfolio performance? (Sharpe Ratio, Alpha, Beta, etc.)

• What’s the difference between absolute and relative returns?

• How do you control downside risk in portfolio construction?

• Explain VaR (Value at Risk) and how you use it.

• What’s your view on current Indian equity markets and key sectors for next 3 years?

• How do you track macroeconomic indicators (GDP, CPI, Repo rate) and their impact on markets?

• How do FIIs and DIIs affect market trends?

• Tell me about a time when your investment call went wrong. How did you manage it?

• How do you convince a client to stay invested during a bear market?

• How do you handle clients with unrealistic return expectations?

• Explain CAPM and its relevance to portfolio management.

• What is efficient frontier?

• How does diversification reduce risk?

• What is tracking error and why is it important?

• How do you use regression or correlation in analyzing portfolio performance?

• Why do you want to work as a quantitative analyst?

• How do you stay updated on financial markets and quantitative research?

• Describe a time you used data to solve a problem.

• How do you handle ambiguity in large datasets?

• If your model starts underperforming in live markets, what’s your approach?

• Explain the difference between variance and covariance.

• What is correlation? How do you test if two variables are correlated?

• What is a p-value and what does it signify?

• How do you test for stationarity in a time series?

• What is heteroscedasticity? How can it affect model accuracy?

• How do you handle missing or noisy data in financial time series?

• What is the Central Limit Theorem, and why is it important in finance?

• Explain the difference between linear and logistic regression.

• What are the assumptions of OLS regression?

• How do you detect multicollinearity in regression?

• What is ARIMA? How do you decide its parameters (p, d, q)?

• What is cointegration? Why is it important for pairs trading?

• How do you model volatility (GARCH, EWMA)?

• What are lag variables, and why are they important in time series forecasting?

• What is the Black-Scholes model? What are its assumptions?

• How do you derive the formula for option pricing?

• What are the Greeks (Delta, Gamma, Theta, Vega, Rho)?

• What is implied volatility and how is it estimated?

• How do you hedge an options portfolio?

• What is risk-neutral valuation?

• Explain the concept of Efficient Frontier.

• What is CAPM and how do you calculate expected return?

• Define Beta and Alpha in context of portfolio performance.

• How does diversification reduce portfolio risk?

• What is Value-at-Risk (VaR)? Explain its calculation methods (Historical, Parametric, Monte Carlo).

• Which programming languages are you proficient in (Python, R, C++, MATLAB)?

• How would you implement a Monte Carlo simulation in Python?

• How would you calculate Sharpe Ratio for a portfolio using Python?

• Write a function to backtest a trading strategy.

• How do you optimize code for speed in Python?

• How can machine learning models improve trading strategies?

• Explain random forest and its advantages over logistic regression.

• What is overfitting? How can you prevent it?

• How do you select features for a predictive trading model?

• What is cross-validation and why is it important?

• How do you estimate market volatility?

• What are the key risk metrics for a quantitative trading strategy?

• How would you stress-test a portfolio?

• Explain tail risk and fat tails.

• What happens to correlation during market crashes?

• Walk me through a quant strategy you have developed or would like to build.

• How do you evaluate the performance of a trading model?

• How do you ensure your strategy is not curve-fitted?

• What are the biggest challenges in live deployment of quant models?