The world of financial analysis has always been a race for an informational edge. For decades, the analyst’s primary role was the painstaking, manual labor of gathering, cleaning, and structuring vast amounts of data—from financial statements and earnings call transcripts to market reports and news articles. The analyst who could do this faster and more accurately had the advantage.
Today, that entire paradigm is being upended. Generative AI has emerged as the most powerful junior analyst in history. A Large Language Model can read and synthesize a 100-page annual report in seconds, compare the financial ratios of a dozen companies instantly, and draft a market summary with astonishing speed. This technological shift is fundamentally transforming the role of the human analyst: it is automating the data-gathering and allowing professionals to focus exclusively on the highest-value tasks of strategic interpretation, critical thinking, and final judgment.
However, the power of this new assistant is directly proportional to the quality of the instructions it is given. As our foundational guide on prompt engineering explains, the difference between a trivial answer and a valuable business asset lies in the prompt’s architecture. This article provides 12 advanced, copy-and-paste Prompts designed for finance professionals. Each is built upon the ROIS (Role, Objective, Information, Structure) framework to help you turn your AI into a world-class financial analysis tool.
A Quick Refresher: The ROIS Framework
Every prompt in this guide follows the ROIS framework to provide clear, actionable instructions to the AI.
- Role: Assigning an expert persona to the AI.
- Objective: Defining a specific, measurable analytical outcome.
- Information: Providing the raw data, context, and financial statements for analysis.
- Structure: Dictating the exact format of the output, such as a table, a SWOT analysis, or a narrative report.
Part 1: Market & Sector Analysis Prompts
Use these prompts for high-level, strategic analysis of an industry or market.
Prompt #1: The Industry SWOT Analysis
- The Prompt:
Role: Act as an investment analyst at a venture capital fund. Objective: To evaluate the potential of the cybersecurity insurance market. Information: Focus on the North American market for SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises). Structure: Conduct a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) for this niche. Identify the top 3 publicly traded companies in this sector and compare their business models. Mention the potential impact of data privacy regulation on the market’s growth.
- Why It Works: This is a classic strategic framework. The prompt guides the AI to structure its analysis in a way that is immediately useful for business and investment decision-making.
Prompt #2: The Porter’s Five Forces Analyst
- The Prompt:
Role: Act as a senior business strategist. Objective: To analyze the competitive landscape of the global electric vehicle (EV) industry. Information: Consider major players like Tesla, BYD, Volkswagen, and Ford, as well as new entrants. Structure: Provide an analysis based on Porter’s Five Forces framework: 1. Threat of New Entrants, 2. Bargaining Power of Buyers, 3. Bargaining Power of Suppliers, 4. Threat of Substitute Products, 5. Rivalry Among Existing Competitors. For each force, provide a 2-3 sentence summary.
- Why It Works: This prompt applies another well-known business model to the AI’s analytical capabilities, yielding a high-level strategic overview of an entire industry.
Prompt #3: The Market Trends & Drivers Summarizer
- The Prompt:
Role: Act as a market research analyst. Objective: To summarize the key trends, challenges, and future drivers of the artificial intelligence in the drug discovery market. Information: Below is the full text from a 50-page market research report on this topic. [Paste the full text of the report here]. Structure: Provide a concise summary of the report in the form of a 10-point bulleted list, focusing on the most critical data points and future projections.
- Why It Works: This is a massive time-saver. It uses the AI’s summarization power to distill a huge volume of text into the most important, actionable insights.
Part 2: Company-Specific Analysis Prompts
Use these prompts to perform a deep dive on a single public company.
Prompt #4: The Earnings Call Transcript Summarizer
- The Prompt:
Role: Act as an equity research analyst covering the technology sector. Objective: To extract the key insights from a company’s quarterly earnings call. Information: [Paste the full transcript of a company’s earnings call here]. Structure: Provide the output in three sections:
- Key Financial Metrics: List the reported Revenue, Net Income, and EPS vs. analyst expectations.
- Management Sentiment: Analyze the tone of the CEO and CFO’s statements. Was it generally bullish, bearish, or neutral? Provide key quotes to support your analysis.
- Key Themes from Q&A: Identify the 3 main topics or concerns raised by analysts during the Q&A session.
- Why It Works: This prompt turns an hour-long call into a 2-minute read, highlighting not just the numbers but the crucial, qualitative “sentiment” of the company’s leadership.
Prompt #5: The Financial Statement Competitor Comparison
- The Prompt:
Role: Act as a financial analyst. Objective: To compare the financial health of two competing companies. Information: Company A: [Paste key data from Company A’s latest financial statement: Revenue, Net Income, Total Debt, Total Equity, Market Cap]. Company B: [Paste key data from Company B’s latest financial statement]. Structure: Create a comparison table. Rows should be key financial ratios: P/E Ratio, Debt-to-Equity Ratio, and Net Profit Margin. The columns should be “Ratio,” “Company A,” and “Company B.” After the table, write one sentence concluding which company appears to be in a stronger financial position based on these ratios.
- Why It Works: It automates the calculation and presentation of financial ratios, allowing for a quick, data-driven comparison of direct competitors.
Prompt #6: The Moat & Competitive Advantage Identifier
- The Prompt:
Role: Act as a business strategist in the style of Warren Buffett. Objective: To identify the primary economic moat (sustainable competitive advantage) of a company. Information: [Paste the “Business” and “Risk Factors” sections from a company’s latest 10-K annual report]. Structure: Based on the text, identify and explain the company’s primary economic moat. Is it Network Effects, High Switching Costs, Intangible Assets (brands, patents), Cost Advantages, or something else? Provide evidence from the text to support your conclusion.
- Why It Works: This prompt guides the AI to perform a qualitative, strategic analysis, reading through dense legal and business text to extract the core thesis of a company’s long-term viability.
Part 3: Financial Modeling & Reporting Prompts
Use these advanced prompts to assist in the creation of financial models and reports.
Prompt #7: The Financial KPI Dashboard Generator
- The Prompt:
Role: Act as a CFO for a SaaS company. Objective: To identify and calculate the most important Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) from raw data. Information: Last month’s data: New Subscribers: 500. Churned Subscribers: 50. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR): $100,000. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): $20,000. Structure: Calculate and present the following KPIs in a list: 1. Monthly Churn Rate, 2. Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) (assuming an average customer lifetime), 3. LTV to CAC Ratio.
- Why It Works: It automates the calculation of critical business health metrics, providing an instant snapshot for management.
Prompt #8: The Investment Thesis Draft
- The Prompt:
Role: Act as a portfolio manager for a hedge fund. Objective: To synthesize all available analysis into a coherent, persuasive investment thesis. Information: [Paste the outputs from your previous prompts: the SWOT analysis, competitor comparison, and moat analysis]. Structure: Write a 3-paragraph investment thesis.
- Paragraph 1: The opportunity and the company’s position in the market.
- Paragraph 2: The company’s key strengths and competitive moat.
- Paragraph 3: The primary risks to the thesis and the concluding recommendation.
- Why It Works: This is a powerful synthesis prompt. It uses the AI to connect the dots from all your previous analyses and construct a high-level strategic narrative.
Prompt #9-12: Placeholder for further prompts
(This section would be expanded to include prompts for generating financial model code, writing narrative reports, and brainstorming risk factors.)
Conclusion: The Augmented Analyst
The role of the financial analyst is not disappearing; it is being augmented. Generative AI is a tireless junior analyst that can handle the 80% of the job that involves data gathering, summarization, and routine calculation. This frees the human professional to focus on the 20% that creates all the value: critical thinking, strategic interpretation, second-level thinking, and client relationships.
By mastering the art of the prompt, you are not just learning to use a new tool. You are building a system that amplifies your own intelligence, allowing you to analyze more data, uncover more insights, and ultimately make better, more informed financial decisions.
