Information and education only. Every page, figure and calculator on this site exists to explain how financial instruments work. Nothing here is investment, tax or legal advice, a recommendation, or a valuation you can rely on. Full disclaimer

Prep

Every other section of this site is organised the way the subject is — by instrument, by mechanism, by document. This one is organised the way a deadline is. You have an interview on Thursday, you start on a desk in three weeks, or you have just moved into a seat next to one and everybody around you is using words nobody is going to explain. The material was already here; these six pages are the doors into it. All of it is information and education only — see the disclaimer. Nothing here is careers advice, and nothing anywhere on this site is investment advice.

The badges say how much a page assumes: Start here nothing beyond plain English · Some background helps one concept from elsewhere on the site · Assumes the mechanics written for someone already inside the market.

Before the interview

  • The product round of a markets interviewSome background helpsfive families of product question, what a complete answer to each contains, how to talk about a trade honestly, the five ordinary ways a prepared candidate still loses the round, and a two-week route through this site.
  • Explain it out loudStart herea four-sentence template that fits every instrument here, twelve products written out in it, and a drill for finding the one sentence you cannot yet say.
  • Markets arithmetic without a screenSome background helpstwelve approximations, each derived rather than asserted and each checked against the exact answer, so you know where it breaks.

Before the first day

  • Which desk trades whatSome background helpseleven trading seats and six that sit next to them: what each touches, the single number it lives by, and what a bad day looks like from that chair.
  • The words of your first weekStart herethe vocabulary a floor uses without explaining it, grouped by the situation you first hear each word in rather than by alphabet.

If you are not sure which seat you want

  • Which role needs which part of this siteStart heretwelve jobs that have to understand financial products without necessarily trading them: risk, quant, operations, compliance, asset management, treasury, journalism, law, supervision, teaching, and the person who simply holds something and wants to know what it is.

What to reach for after these

  • The learning paths — ten routes through the atlas, each ordered so that no page assumes anything that has not already appeared. Path 1 is the ten instruments everything else references.
  • The atlas itself — 118 instruments across 11 markets, each opening with the ones that define its market.
  • The market examSome background helps — 15 random questions across the whole site. The fastest way to find the page you actually needed is to get its question wrong.
  • How products failStart here — six patterns that between them cover every case study here, and the single most reusable thing on the site in an interview.

One thing worth saying plainly

None of these pages quotes an interviewer, describes an employer's process, or claims to know what any particular firm asks. They are this publication's own reading of what a product question is for, written so that they are useful whether you are preparing for an interview, teaching the material, or simply checking whether you understand an instrument well enough to say so out loud. Everything on this site is written for it — see the licences and credits.