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Morgan Stanley interview questions

129 questions researched across 7 Morgan Stanley seats in Investment Banking, Wealth Management, Global Markets. Below are 12 of them.

Seats we researched

  • Summer AnalystInvestment Banking · intern · 20 min
  • AnalystInvestment Banking · graduate · 30 min
  • Wealth Management InternWealth Management · intern · 20 min
  • Markets Summer AnalystGlobal Markets · intern · 20 min
  • Technology Summer AnalystTechnology · intern · 20 min
  • Operations Summer AnalystOperations · intern · 20 min
  • Research Summer AnalystResearch · intern · 20 min

12 Morgan Stanley interview questions

  1. Walk me through a project on your resume and isolate what you personally owned.

  2. What is something you consider important for teamwork?

  3. Tell me about a time you did the right thing, even though it cost you something.

  4. Briefly analyze one company you have studied before.

  5. What is a subject that isn't taught in school that you think should be, and why?

  6. If not finance or banking, which field would you go into?

  7. Why Morgan Stanley investment banking, and what would you personally add to the team?

  8. How do you expect the S&P 500 to perform over the next 12 months, and what would change your mind?

  9. When is the Gordon Growth method not appropriate for a terminal value?

  10. How does FIFO versus LIFO change a DCF in an inflationary environment?

  11. Walk me through the IPO process.

  12. Why Morgan Stanley for a full-time investment banking role rather than another bulge bracket?

What a strong answer does

The questions above fall into 5 kinds. What a strong answer does differs by kind, not by question.

Behavioral6 of 12 above
Lead with the claim and context; isolate your personal action and decision; explain the trade-off; quantify the result; finish with what you learned and changed.
Technical3 of 12 above
State the intuition first; walk through the mechanics; make assumptions explicit; test a risk or edge case; connect the answer to the role.
Market1 of 12 above
State a view; support it with evidence and a catalyst; explain valuation or transmission; give the strongest countercase; name the risk that would change your mind.
Behavioral1 of 12 above
Name a concrete MS platform or group reason that would not work for another bank; isolate the skill you would contribute in week one; avoid prestige and values recitation without an example.
Market1 of 12 above
State a directional view with a catalyst; name what is priced in; give the print or event that would flip you; keep it a spoken 60–90 second HireVue answer.

117 more Morgan Stanley questions

The rest of the bank — 129 in total — is asked by the interviewer during practice, so you meet them the way you would on the day rather than reading them first.

Practise Morgan Stanley questions

How these questions were researched

Every question carries a provenance grade. Some were reported by candidates who sat the round, some come from the firm’s own published guidance or a source that trains for it, and the rest are written to match how this firm asks. Each seat is studied on its own — the round it actually runs, the order it runs it in, and what it is listening for. A Morgan Stanley round is not a generic behavioural screen, and practising one as the other is how people walk in unprepared.

Falas is not affiliated with or endorsed by any employer named. Simulations are independent practice based on publicly described recruiting formats.