Given a ticker to research for an interview - is it ok to say hold? or have to point long/short?

Thanks, important to add - this is a take home case /exam for an interview

Never pitch hold in an interview. In real life you are only rewarded by taking side...I mean you are still long a stock if you are holding it and not up/downsizing or vice versa. What you should be arguing is the probability of upside/downside and the time needed to get paid. Should we buy a stock with 15% upside in 3 months with 70% chance for it to happen or 5% upside in 1 month with 25% chance? Are there more attractive opportunities in the same space to take the same exposure to a product/service/macro view? Is this ticker hedgeable? The timing component determines whether a pitch is actionable

Say hold only if you are pitching to a very LT quality biased shop where the prospective IRR for the stock is like 8-10pp p.a. so you're holding because it's a very high quality co despite forecasted IRR mid teens. Otherwise, NO. 

Thanks for these comments. Important to say, I'm not exactly pitching. (as in here a new opportunity I identified) - I was assigned a ticker and said do investment research and thesis. still not valid to do hold? (its a great stock, but really also priced that way)

Asked another way, how would you approach a conversation with a L/S shop. where the ticker given yields after research 5-10% upside only

Is this for a L/S shop or LO?

L/S (multi-strategy mega fund, but L/S) 

You can recommend passing at the current price but would look to buy / sell at price targets. 

If it's an interview, they are not looking for an idea that will make money but instead a good pitch.

Even if you are convinced there is not a lot of money to be made on the name, I'm sure you could build a good pitch based on multiple arguments. 

You could mention at the end of your pitch the risks to your thesis tho.

If it’s a great stock then make a very clear case based on fundamentals for why it’s great. Then come back and speak to valuation and where you would buy it. Just because it’s expensive doesn’t mean you shouldn’t own it. If it’s really great then it’s very likely that it’s expensive on street numbers but the street is perpetually low and teh buyside thinks it’s closer to fairly valued.