“Following the markets” interview questions
Please ignore the handle, I am not an intern in research; I’m a first year analyst in a role that doesn’t broadly look at markets, looking to transition into a role that does.
I know I can anticipate questions along the lines of “where do I see markets going” or “what is moving the markets” or “where would you invest $X” … but these all sound very … idk … abstract? I’m used to dealing with a very niche sector, so “the markets” is a lot more broad than anything I’ve had to deal with.
Aside from staying up to date on finance news, does anyone have any direction on how to prepare for these types of questions? Anything templated?
Thank you.
You want to move to a markets-facing role but don't pay attention to the markets??
No, I do follow markets casually. I read the WSJ and stay up to date on current events, and I invest personally, and do considerable research there.
My question was more over how to answer these questions. I’ve never been asked anything as broad as “where do you see markets going?” or “what is driving the markets?” For me, I’ve followed 1) my specific sector, as it pertains to my current role, 2) what’s pertinent to my personal investments, and 3) current market events to the degree to which a 50 year-old white collar professional who has an interest in investing but doesn’t work in finance does; I know the WSJ headlines and such, but on a high level.
I’ll also add that these are ECM roles I’m looking at, so, yes, following markets is fair game for the interview, but it’s not as market centric as, say, trading. I’d agree that my question would be a bit ignorant for a prospective trader.
I asked on this forum as I thought that market-following questions specifically would be better answered here than in the IB forum, and there’s no specific ECM one.
There's not really "a way" to answer these question imo. Have only interviewed for SnT SAs so interviewer's expectations are already pretty low but in my experience they have always been a causal convo on monetary policy (obviously makes sense for this past cycle especially). Also might be worth to discuss a bit of current events about the product ur interviewer trades/sells (repo "blow up" this last Thurs before nfp if ur interviewer is a short end trader). I'd follow what the IB kids do for markets qs for ECM roles i.e. talk about deals ur bank did recently
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