Public Company

Finance a la Shmoop! What are five questions, you can expect to be asked, in

a public market investing interview? Alright number one, it sounds

innocent enough of a question, right? And note that you aren't being asked, so what

do you think of GE here? As a relative newbie to investing, you are not expected

to have an opinion on much, of a range, of stocks. But it certainly is fair game to

ask you about one specific stock, you come up with, that you follow. So if you [two men in conference room]

answer, I don't really know, then well, just end the interview right there

and save everyone a whole lot of time. Two, and the interviewer may ask you, why?

Why, well you said you liked Apple. Well why do you like Apple and not the fruit

the computer company and the answer can't be because Kramer says so. That's

almost always the wrong answer. It also can't be, because I like the new iPhone,

or well who doesn't like Apple. Yeah you need metrics and an opinion. Like, well

the street doesn't appreciate Apples earnings power, from the new markets [interviewee talking to interviewer]

they're entering all over the world and the new push to sell really high margin

software through its home systems and the new products are totally

underestimated and it's good if your voice gets kind of high and squeaky like

that too, shows passion. Ok dandy, here you've given a claim that is different

from what any yutz can read about in the Wall Street Journal. Which is also, almost

always wrong. And remember if the journalists were actually good at

picking stocks, they'd pick stocks. They wouldn't make one thousandth of the

money per year just writing about stocks, or opinions of other people's opinions [woman in suit crying]

about stocks and or bonds and so on, right? So you have edge in your answer,

but you also need metrics. All right, three metrics. What are apples, why do you

like them, Hmm? Answer, well the published street

estimates are, 16 times earnings this year and 14 times next, and you sound

purposely semi cryptic. Because the presumption is that anyone who follows

stocks knows, that you're referring to, published stock broker, or sell side

research reports, when you say Street and that 16 and 14 are times the published [page with definitions]

estimated earnings numbers. So you speak Street, bully. But then you give edge, or

alpha. That is you say something like, the street

isn't appreciating the mountains of cash, Apple has over seas. The market cap of

the company is a trillion, but it has 350 billion of cash and no real debt. So if

you X out the 350 from the trillion, it's 650 billion dollars of equity cap and [man talking]

well on those numbers it's just twelve and ten times earnings. I think it's a

buy here. Yeah all right pretty good. Four vocab, well you won't be asked for a much

vocab lingo in your interview, or if you are the interviewer is just being a dick.

But by clearly elucidating the difference between, market cap and equity

cap. A subtle but important difference. In an Apple's case, well it's a huge and [mother and daughter swinging]

meaningful swing. Well then you are conveying the sense that you were

actually awake in class that day. Yeah, nice job. All right, moving on. Five, the

plan, so what's the plan. You have to have one. The right answer when the

interviewer asks you, what's your plan? Is usually something like, well I'd like to

eat nails 80 hours a week here, for three years, then go to business school and

work on my golf game. Or it might be, I don't want an MBA, I'm gonna bring a [farmer talking]

watering can, to plant my roots in whatever firm I go to next. So I'm having

deep conversations with just a handful of firms, I've come to admire. Or it might

be, I really should have answered the questions you asked better, I'll go now.

Yeah, or it might even be, sir for the millionth time, I'm not a financial

analyst, I work at McDonald's and I'm just trying to give you back your change.

You wanted fries with that, so here you go. [McDonalds employee]