"Tell me where you think the market is going?"

Sorry if I sound a touch incoherent - bad fever right now.

For all my studying, the question that really scares me is "tell me where you think the market is going?" My honest answer is "please, I'm interviewing to be an analyst. Anything I say, no matter how confidently, is probably really stupid compared to your years of experience." Now, I know the immediate thing some of you'll say is that as an analyst, I should be using my noodle, but come on? Nobody expects your to or, the sense I got - once from a verbatim comment from a JPM associate - "analysts aren't paid to think." The second thing you'll probably say is that a lot of these guys have no idea what's going on in the market themselves. Well, they still have the jobs I want, so...

Anyway, I try to read WSJ as often as I can, but there's just so much going on.

1) Should I just research a mainstream opinion, recycle it, and sound confident? Because honestly, I'm having a lot of trouble forming an opinion, because I feel overwhelmed by all the news.

2) How can I do good research on specific markets: either industries or regions, like BeNeLux or the emerging economies, for example? What's a good way to get my hands on some BB research reports?

3) Is there a good, optimized, productive way to read the news and focus on certain things? Or is it the old "read till you start seeing trends" thing?

Any other thoughts are appreciated. This is the part you tell me I'm not cut out to be a banker :)

Thanks!

 

Even though you obviously don't know what is going to happen doesn't mean you can't give some kind of coherent thoughts on what you think may happen based on observation. Give them SOMETHING at least to show that you think logically. Please don't use that lame cop out about being an analyst. A very important part of your job/life will to be able to spout bullshit to people to make them think you know what you are talking about.

This to all my hatin' folks seeing me getting guac right now..
 

i would start off discussing broad issues relevant in the market today it shows you are putting in effort to at least understand what is going on mention Europe, fiscal cliff, China, etc then mention possibilities- if x/y/z happens, then i'd expect the market to blah blah but if a/b/c turns out this way, it might do this because...

 

Generally, they're talking about the broader equity market. What they want to know is your thought process and you should be able to defend your position. Will not matter if you're right/wrong. Naturally though, when one talks about the broader equity market inevitably general knowledge about the economy and debt market comes up- e.g. interest rates, yields, treasury curve etc.

 

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