Fidelity - Equity Research Internship - Final Round
Firstly, I apologise if this post is cluttering the forum. This is my first visit to the site, I did a search but couldn't see a relevant thread. If there is one then please point me in its direction to save time.
I have a final round with Fidelity next week for a summer internship in equity research in London. This is my first ever interview for a buy-side role. At each of my BB interviews I haven't been asked anything remotely technical or market related. My education is in engineering so my understanding of these areas is limited.
A few technical questions came up in the tele interview; I went through the different valuation ratios that I had researched and had to talk about a sector that I found interesting and what macro-econ factors where impacting it. This is about as far as my knowledge stretches.
I've looked at a couple of research reports, looked up the services Fidelity offer on their fund supermarket site, prepared answers for almost every competency/motivational question I can think of. What else can I be doing for the next week to improve my chances?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Apologies once again if creating this thread was unnecessary.
Regards.
Hi er_junior,
I was an equity intern at Fidelity--best advice I can give is "calm down, project confidence, show you're interested in picking stocks." You don't need to know all the answers, your interviewers know you don't have all the answers, but you do need to show you're not a neurotic mess who'll fall apart when his/her valuation model doesn't tie all the financial statements together perfectly.
Of the three, I would say #3 is the most important. Interviewers like to know that you're committed to the job and they know that as a general rule, people who don't enjoy equity research are not going to do a good job of it. You can screw up some of the technical questions (I had no idea that airlines didn't own their planes, btw, and I had an analyst make me walk through the financial statements for a typical airline company) but if they don't think you're a good fit, you won't get hired.
Lest you think I'm being overly casual about this--I was such a wreck the night before my superday. Coming from a liberal arts background, having taken 1 accounting class, and not having owned any stocks, I was probably the person with the least amount of financial know-how in the history of their intern program. I gave up studying cash cycles at 1AM the night before, certain that I was going to be laughed out of the building.
You know what? I asked questions, knew my basic ratios, showed that I thought Fidelity was the best place ever to have an internship and that I was certain equity would be my life--and I got the internship.
Best of luck, L.
Great advice Suit Up, thanks for replying so quickly.
You mentioned that showing I'm "interested in picking stocks" is probably the most important point. I too have never owned a stock, I do however have a range of stocks that I follow. The site I use for checking company data is http://www.hemscott.com/companies.do - What sort of questions do you think they could throw up with regards to my research? There is a specific industry that I am most interested in. I have an idea what companies in the industry will perform well/badly long-term (based on business strategy, and mainly what I read in the financial press) but I have never attempted to apply any valuation ratios or anything like that; is this something that I should be doing?
My knowledge of the ratios is basically limited to about six ratios from three categories: 'Business Performance' (Return on equity e.g.), 'Quality of Earnings' (Interest cover e.g.) and 'Valuations' (Price/Earnings e.g.). I'll admit I've never ever heard of Cash Cycles before you mentioned it! :( Is there any technical terms that I HAVE to look into?
I don't think showing my motivation will be too much of an issue, I've wanted to work for Fidelity for about seven years since I did a work placement there at 15. The amount of time I spent on my application form was verging on ridiculous.
Thanks once again for the response!
I think that as long as you put some legwork into running the comps (i.e looking at the financial ratios against comparable companies) you'll be fine. You can follow stocks, but you need to understand what certain changes mean. You don't need to run the numbers yourself but you do need to be able to say "X company has a higher EPS than Y company because of ABC" or "the P/E of J company is higher than K company because of RST".
The ratios you know are fine, but be able to explain and apply them.
For me, the numbers are just a set of representations about where the company is, expressed in financial terms. Critical things like reputation, management team, etc are impossible to represent--but it doesn't make them immaterial. It helps if you can pull in creative ideas--they want to see you think outside the technical box.
E.g: "Executive A has been at X, Y and Z company and performed excellently at all, measured by share performance. Company B is in the same competitive space, and given a solid financial position, I expect management-leveraged earnings to be an additional $0.08 to what the markets have forecasted. Stock is buy." I just pulled that from my ass, but what matters is that you made a compelling argument and backed it up, if only in theory.
Thanks, I'll have a look at a few companies in more detail before the interview.
I have just been informed, as expected, that the morning will consist of a stock picking exercise. Does anyone have any tips or can point me in the direction of any good online resources to prepare for this?
Look at the fundamentals and technicals of the company, maybe do a SWOT analysis of the company too. They like to see logic.
Fidelity ER asso final round coming up HELP!!! (Originally Posted: 01/10/2011)
I have a final round interview for FT ER associate in Fidelity International Investments coming up toward the end of this month.
I asked the hr for details on the interview and he told me there would be a case study called "p-test" in which intervieweees are expected to analyse a stock (handpicked by fidelity, probably a consumer/retail company). I would be given a week to do the analysis before the actual interview takes place. Apart from that, there would be a few general interviews as well.
Just want to know,
Advice/help needed!
Know people who went through it. It is exactly as explained by HR. How have you never been in a buyside interview but made the final round?
You do the case for a week. Most people just used the format they did for other ER reports, most worked on the school funds at their respective schools. There is a panel final round and they ask to explain and go through your case writeup.
So, it's like, you give a buy/sell rec and explain your reasons. That's it?
What kind of questions do they ask?
And yes this is the first buyside interview for me coz i wanna work in hk and there are not a whole lot of buyside opportunities here for somebody fresh out of undergrad.
They will likely have you look at a prospectus of a company that is going public so that you can't use published research. Fidelity is one of the best possible platforms for launching a buyside career whether long-only or HF
I'm assuming you're interviewing for FIL in HK? I don't think marcellus's answer was right. The stock-for-a-week he referred to is used for associates on the undergrad level for the U.S.-based domestic team. The p-test is different and I believe only 3 hours long.
Help! Final round Fidelity Technical Research (Originally Posted: 02/16/2010)
Hi guys,
So I have a final round this week at Fidelity Management Research (FMR) for their Technical Research Associate summer internship.
The position is in their equity research division, but it is technical and not fundamental research.
They said that this is a new program for an internship, so I might not have much to go on, but I was wondering if people had any advice on what questions to expect?
Thanks in advance!
Well, lets see if I can help - my husband works for FMR - equities, this division is one of the key division in the company. The work can be to manage project status and key reports about systems and products, They do analysis of how key products are performing in the current markets, and across various trading desks.
I hope this helps.
I had trading and equity research interviews. Interview wants you to really show personal interest in knowledge about the market. Have an investing thesis. I'm not familiar with this new program but sounds like a unique research/tech hybrid. Interested to hear how you fare.
I work down the street. PM me when you hear how you did.
Yeahhh that's what I figured.
I have sort of a quantitative background, but I told them in the first round I don't have too much experience with technical analysis. I guess I should do a little research before hand and work on an investment thesis that utilizes technical analysis?
Thanks for the advice everyone!
Tell them you want equities trading desk research - I can give you a contact if you get it, PM me then.
Fidelity is a fundamental shop, so your technical position is probably one of two things, which I've listed below.
You will definitely need to demonstrate interest in the markets, but having a fundamental thesis is not going to be important for a technical/quant role.
You will need to demonstrate both passion for the markets and also math proficiency. Know how to run a regression. Know how to use Excel. Say stuff like how the technical stock sorting can be so much more efficient since you can sift through thousands of investments. And Fidelity can then deploy its fundamental research teams much more efficiently since they're just looking at some of the top ranked stocks.
1) A position that uses technical models to rank and select stocks.
Maybe you are looking for trading indicators such as ex: "did the 50 day moving average cross the 200 day moving average". Maybe you are working on factor models that ranks stocks based on statistical correlation with factors such as GDP Growth, Price of Oil, etc.
I'm not exactly sure, but I don't think Fido has any pure technical funds. So this position would probably be working for a sector like Technology, and all the various PMs would leverage your team's knowledge in addition to their fundamental research to aid in selecting stocks.
2) A position that uses technical models to monitor performance of Fidelity funds.
This position would probably sit between the PMs and the marketing department. You'd be calculating performance data for the funds and the marketing department would use that data to promote the funds.
Hi everyone--thanks so much for the advice!
So I'll give you an update on what's happened. I had my interview for the technical research associate intern position and it went very well. They called me and told me they liked me but they also wanted me to be considered in addition for the Sector Specialist internship, so I just had that final round today which went well. 20 minutes after I left the building they gave me a call and I got the offer!
Hey Seafead - I have my final round interview this week for a full time Sector Specialist position at Fidelity. Any tips on that interview? Anything specific that you can remember them asking that you weren't expecting? I'm prepping a stock pitch, general observations about all sectors (it's a generalist position), brushing up on ratios/valuation metrics etc, and qualitative/behavioral questions. I'm hoping to have all bases covered though so if you have any advice it'd be greatly appreciated.
How did you like the internship?
Thanks.
Hi everyone! I have a 20min 2nd round for ER Summer Analyst position in London with a Hiring Manager. Anyone have an idea of what type of questions I can expect? How many rounds before AC? Any help would be greatòy appreciated.
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