76 EY Interview Direct Questions & Answers PDF (2024)

EY, often known as Ernst & Young Global Ltd., is a multinational professional services partnership with its main office in London, England. One of the world’s largest networks for professional services is EY. This company is regarded as one of the “Big Four” accounting firms, along with Deloitte, KPMG, and PwC. Its main services to clients include assurance (which includes financial audit), tax, consulting, and advisory. Apply in EY careers.

Securing your dream job in today’s competitive job market can be a challenging journey. With the landscape of job interviews constantly evolving, it’s essential to have the right tools to help you shine during the EY interview questions.

One powerful resource that can significantly enhance your chances of acing an interview is an interview question set. In this blog post, we’ll break down why investing in the EY Interview Questions and Answers set PDF is a smart move for your career.

In this blog post, we’ll delve into the compelling reasons why investing in the “EY Interview Questions Set PDF File” is a wise decision for your career.

eY Technical Questions

In this article, I am going to share some repeated and important questions related to the finance subject that EY asks while interviewing. Comment below if you find this article helpful.

Note: Focus on fundamental questions regarding internship experience, valuation techniques, and financial concepts. Anyway, almost all those questions are covered in this file.

EY’s most frequently asked interview questions and answers

Q1. DCF and explain briefly

Discounted cash flow (DCF) valuation is a type of financial model that determines whether an investment is worthwhile based on future cash flows. The DCF model operates on the principle that the worth of a company is dependent on its ability to generate positive cash flows for its investors in the future.

• Discounted cash flow analysis helps determine an investment’s value based on its future cash flows.
• The present value of expected future cash flows is estimated using a projected discount rate.
• If the DCF is higher than the current cost of the investment, the opportunity could result in positive returns and may be worthwhile.
• Companies typically use the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) for the discount rate because it accounts for the rate of return shareholders expect.
• A disadvantage of DCF is its reliance on estimations of future cash flows, which could prove inaccurate.

DCF Formula

​DCF=(1+r)1CF1​​+(1+r)2CF2​​+(1+r)nCFn​​

where:  CF1​=The cash flow for year one

CF2​=The cash flow for year two

CFn​=The cash flow for additional years

r=The discount rate​

Q2. Explain the time value of money.

The time value of money (TVM) is the concept that a sum of money is worth more now than it will be at a future date due to its earnings potential in the interim. The time value of money is a core principle of finance. A sum of money in the hand has greater value than the same sum to be paid in the future.

If the rate of inflation is higher than the rate of your investment return, then even though your investment shows a nominal positive return, you are losing money in terms of purchasing power. For example, if you earn 10% on investments, but the rate of inflation is 15%, you’re losing 5% in purchasing power each year (10% – 15% = -5%).

Q3. What is the difference between Futures and options?

Futures

Futures are derivative financial contracts that obligate parties to buy or sell an asset at a predetermined future date and price. The buyer must purchase or the seller must sell the underlying asset at the set price, regardless of the current market price at the expiration date.

Underlying assets include physical commodities and financial instruments. Futures contracts detail the quantity of the underlying asset and are standardized to facilitate trading on a futures exchange. Futures can be used for hedging or trade speculation.

Options

The term option refers to a financial instrument that is based on the value of underlying securities, such as stocks. An options contract offers the buyer the opportunity to buy or sell—depending on the type of contract they hold—the underlying asset. Unlike futures, the holder is not required to buy or sell the asset if they decide against it.

Each option contract will have a specific expiration date by which the holder must exercise their option. The stated price on an option is known as the strike price. Options are typically bought and sold through online or retail brokers.

Difference

Options and futures are two varieties of financial derivatives investors can use to speculate on market price changes or hedge risk. Both options and futures allow an investor to buy an investment at a specific price by a specific date. But there are important differences in the rules for options and futures contracts, and in the risks, they pose to investors.

Q4. Hedge fund strategies?

A hedge fund is a limited partnership of private investors whose money is managed by professional fund managers who use a wide range of strategies, including leveraging or trading non-traditional assets, to earn above-average investment returns.

Hedge fund investing is often considered a risky alternative investment choice and usually requires a high minimum investment or net worth, often targeting wealthy clients.

Strategies

1. Global macro strategies

In the global macro strategy, managers make bets based on major global macroeconomic trends such as moves in interest rates, currencies, demographic shifts, and economic cycles.  Fund managers use discretionary and systematic approaches in significant financial and non-financial markets by trading currencies, futures, options contracts, and traditional equities and bonds. Bridgewater is the most famous example of a global macro fund.

2. Directional hedge fund strategies

In the directional approach, managers bet on the directional moves of the market (long or short) as they expect a trend to continue or reverse for some time.  A manager analyzes market movements, trends, or inconsistencies, which can then be applied to investments in vehicles such as long or short equity hedge funds and emerging markets funds.

3. Event-driven hedge fund strategies

Event-driven strategies are used in situations wherein the underlying opportunity and risk are associated with an event. Fund managers find investment opportunities in corporate transactions such as acquisitions, consolidations, recapitalizations, liquidations, and bankruptcy. These transactional events form the basis for investments in distressed securities, risk arbitrage, and special situations.

4. Relative value arbitrage strategies

Relative value arbitrage hedge fund strategies take advantage of relative price discrepancies between different securities whose prices the manager expects to diverge or converge over time. Sub-strategies in the category include fixed income arbitrage, equity market neutral positions, convertible arbitrage, and volatility arbitrage, among others.

5. Long and short strategies

In long/short hedge fund strategies, managers make what are known as “pair trades” to bet on two securities in the same industry.  For example, if they expect Coke to perform better than Pepsi, they would go long Coke and short Pepsi.  Regardless of overall market trends, they will be okay as long as Coke performs better than Pepsi on a relative basis.

6. Capital structure strategies

Some hedge funds take advantage of the mispricing of securities up and down the capital structure of one single company. For example, if they believe the debt is overvalued, then they short the debt and go long the equity, thus creating a hedge and betting on the eventual spread correction between the securities.

Q5. What is a long/short strategy?

Long-short equity is an investing strategy that takes long positions in stocks that are expected to appreciate and short positions in stocks that are expected to decline. A long-short equity strategy seeks to minimize market exposure while profiting from stock gains in the long positions, along with price declines in the short positions. Although this may not always be the case, the strategy should be profitable on a net basis.

The long-short equity strategy is popular with hedge funds, many of which employ a market-neutral strategy, in which dollar amounts of both long and short positions are equal.

Q6. NPV vs IRR?

Net present value (NPV) is the difference between the present value of cash inflows and the present value of cash outflows over some time. By contrast, the internal rate of return (IRR) is a calculation used to estimate the profitability of potential investments.

Both of these measurements are primarily used in capital budgeting, the process by which companies determine whether a new investment or expansion opportunity is worthwhile. Given an investment opportunity, a firm needs to decide whether undertaking the investment will generate net economic profits or losses for the company.

Q7. How will you value a company stock?

Investing has a set of four basic elements that investors use to break down a stock’s value. In this article, we will look at four commonly used financial ratios—price-to-book (P/B) ratio, price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, price-to-earnings growth (PEG) ratio, and dividend yield—and what they can tell you about a stock. Financial ratios are powerful tools to help summarize financial statements and the health of a company or enterprise.

• Price-To-Book (P/B) Ratio
• Price-To-Earnings (P/E) Ratio
• Price-to-Earnings Growth (PEG) Ratio
• Dividend Yield
• The Bottom Line

Q8. What is the duration of bonds?

Bond duration is a way of measuring how much bond prices are likely to change if and when interest rates move. In more technical terms, bond duration is a measurement of interest rate risk. Understanding bond duration can help investors determine how bonds fit into a broader investment portfolio.

Q9. What is YTM?

YTM is yield to maturity which means the total return you expect from your investment in bonds/debt mutual funds if the same is held till maturity. It is expressed as a percentage of the current market price. It is used for comparing different bonds and debt funds with different maturities.

Q10. If zero coupon bonds are issued at 98 and redeemed at 100, after 6 months? (Click for this concept)

Q11. What is VLOOKUP

VLOOKUP stands for “Vertical Lookup” and is used to search for a specific value in the first column of a dataset and retrieve a corresponding value from a different column within the same row. It takes four arguments: lookup value, table array, col_index_num, and [range lookup]

Q12. What are the limitations of V Lookup?

The main limitations of the VLOOKUP function are:

VLOOKUP can only look up values to the right on the lookup_value. i.e. the lookup only works left to right. You’ll need XLOOKUP, or INDEX MATCH for a right-to-left lookup.

VLOOKUP can only perform a vertical lookup across columns. It cannot search across rows. For a horizontal lookup, you’ll need HLOOKUP or XLOOKUP.

A VLOOKUP function does not automatically update when a formula is added.

By default, the VLOOKUP function does not find an exact match. It returns a #N/A. To return an approximate match using VLOOKUP, you must set the final parameter as TRUE or 1.

Q13. Syntax of VLOOKUP

The LOOKUP function vector form syntax has the following arguments: lookup_value Required. A value that LOOKUP searches for in the first vector. Lookup_value can be a number, text, a logical value, or a name or reference that refers to a value.

For example: =VLOOKUP(A2,A10:C20,2,TRUE)

Q14. What does valuation mean?

Valuation is the process of determining the worth of an asset or company. Valuation is important because it provides prospective buyers with an idea of how much they should pay for an asset or company and prospective sellers, how much they should sell for.

Q15. Enterprise value

As its name implies, enterprise value (EV) is the total value of a company, defined in terms of its financing. It includes both the current share price (market capitalization) and the cost to pay off debt (net debt, or debt minus cash).

Q16. Depreciation

Depreciation represents how much of the value of an asset has been used. Depreciating assets helps companies earn revenue from an asset while expensing a portion of its cost each year the asset is in use. Depreciation is wear and tear.

Depreciation is referred to as the reduction in the cost of a fixed asset in sequential order, due to wear and tear until the asset becomes obsolete. Machinery, vehicle, equipment, and building are some examples of assets that are likely to experience wear and tear or obsolescence.

Q17. Index function in VLOOKUP.

VLOOKUP in Excel is a very useful function used for lookup and reference. It looks for the desired values from one row to another to find a match. Using a combination of INDEX and MATCH, we can perform the same operations as VLOOKUP. INDEX returns the value of a cell in a table based on the column and row number.

Q18. What are the advanagtes of vlookup

When you need to find information in a large spreadsheet, or you are always looking for the same kind of information, use the VLOOKUP function. VLOOKUP works a lot like a phone book, where you start with the piece of data you know, like someone’s name, to find out what you don’t know, like their phone number.

Q19. Difference between VLOOKUP and index function.

VLOOKUP must be utilized for looking into values from Left to Right. INDEX MATCH can look into the qualities from Left to Right as well as Right to Left. VLOOKUP just can query through vertical lines, for example, segments, and not through columns. INDEX MATCH can query values through lines as well as segments.

Q20. What is arbitrage and DCF (Discounted Cash Flow)

Arbitrage describes the act of buying a security in one market and simultaneously selling it in another market at a higher price, thereby enabling investors to profit from the temporary difference in cost per share.

Discounted cash flow (DCF) is a method of valuation used to determine the value of an investment based on its return in the future–called future cash flows. DCF helps to calculate how much an investment is worth today based on the return in the future.

Q21. Derivatives

A derivative is a product whose value is derived from the value of one (or more) basic variables, based on underlying financial assets can be bonds, commodities, currencies, interest, rates, stocks, markets, indexes (or) any other asset.

E.g.: Wheat former may wish to sell their harvest at a future date to eliminate the risk of a change in prices by that date.

Derivatives can be classified based on the underlying asset (such as forex derivatives, equity derivatives, etc). It is mainly classified into four “generic” types forward, futures, option, and swap.

Q22. Swaps

A swap is a derivative contract through which two parties exchange the cash flows or liabilities from two different financial instruments. Most trades involve cash flows based on a notional principal amount such as a loan or bond, although the instrument can be almost anything. Usually, the principal does not change hands. Each cash flow comprises one leg of the swap. One cash flow is generally fixed, while the other is variable and based on a benchmark interest rate, floating currency exchange rate, or index price.

In simple, Swaps are agreements between two parties to exchange cash flows in the future according to a pre-arranged formula.

The two commonly used swaps are:

Interest rate swaps: This entails swapping only the interest-related cash flows between the parties in the same currency.

Currency Swaps: These entail swapping both principal and interest between the parties, with the cash flows in one direction being in a different currency than those in the opposite direction.

Q23. F&O (Future & Option)

Future and Option are two derivative instruments where the traders buy or sell an underlying asset at a pre-determined price. The trader makes a profit if the price rises. In case, he has a buy position and if he has a sell position, a fall in price is beneficial for him.

Q24. Financial Statements

The financial statements are used by investors, market analysts, and creditors to evaluate a company’s financial health and earnings potential. The three major financial statement reports are the balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows. Not all financial statements are created equally.

Q25. Risk in Bonds

Bonds as an investment tool are considered mostly safe. However, no investment is devoid of risks. Investors who take greater risks accrue greater returns and vice versa. Investors averse to risk feel unsettled during intermittent periods of slowdown, while risk-loving investors take such incidents of a slowdown positively with the expectation of gaining significant returns over time. Hence, it becomes imperative for us to understand the various risks that are associated with bond investments and to what extent they can affect the returns.

Types of Risks in Bonds

• Inflation Risk
• Interest Rate Risk
• Call Risk
• Reinvestment Risk
• Credit Risk
• Liquidity Risk
• Market Risk
• Default Risk
• Rating Risk

Q26. Debt sculpting (+25 More Questions) Buy Remaining Questions

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All the Questions and Answers related to EY interview are in one Download PDF file provided below for only Rs. 499/-

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EY general/HR questions

General Questions (To Be Prepared by Yourself) – Refer to winsomeismail.com for some answers

Q1. Introduction

Q2. What are the subjects learn from MBA

Q3. Subjects are in MBA

Q4. Do you have any questions

Q5. Basic questions regarding the MBA project

Q6. Take me through your resume

Q7. What HR said about the role will you explain briefly?

Q8. How familiar with Excel?

Q9. What functions did you use in Excel?

Q10. About College

Q11. About Family

Q12. What are your hobbies?

Q13. About EY

Q14. Why EY (+15 More HR Questions) Buy Remaining Questions

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All the Questions and Answers related to EY interview are in one Download PDF file provided below for only Rs. 499/-

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