When major events unfold — whether it’s an earnings miss, an acquisition, regulatory changes or shifting industry forecasts — they can dramatically affect a company’s financial health and competitive position. For credit analysts, investment bankers, and other financial professionals, understanding these impacts is key to making informed decisions.
In this blog, we’ll explore how you can simplify event impact analysis with expertly crafted prompts designed to streamline your workflows. From uncovering earnings drivers and acquisition strategies to analyzing industry trends, these targeted prompts consolidate complex data into clear, concise outputs to enhance productivity.
What is Event Impact Analysis?
Event impact analysis is the process of evaluating how key events and developments affect a company’s financial health, creditworthiness, and competitive position. By evaluating these impacts, you can uncover critical drivers of performance, identify risks, and make more informed decisions about investments, credit assessments, or strategic recommendations.
How Do You Measure the Impact of an Event?
Measuring an event’s impact means identifying its effects on key metrics like revenue, market position, or risk exposure. Using targeted prompts, you can quickly analyze data, uncover trends, and extract actionable insights to make smarter, faster decisions.
What Are the Three Types of Impact Analysis?
Impact analysis typically includes:
1) Financial impact: assessing effects on revenue, costs, or profitability
2) Operational impact: evaluating changes to processes, resources, or efficiency
3) Strategic impact: understanding shifts in market position or long-term goals
Prompts that Get the Job Done
Scroll down to view our sample prompts. Each one has been tested, validated, and refined by our team to deliver consistent, actionable outputs, so you can move from question to clarity, faster.
Uncover Earnings Drivers to Enhance Credit Analysis
Chat Workspace
Prompt: Tell me about companies that missed their most recent earnings expectations and cited softening demand, competition, or tariffs.
Sources: News
Then…
Evaluate [ORGANIZATION]'s most recent earnings call. Detail their concerns for weakening demand.
Sources: Earnings Calls
Why it works: Moody’s AI simplifies your workflows by consolidating data from multiple sources into a single, intuitive platform, freeing you from the hassle of sifting through multiple databases and reports. For credit analysts, this seamless integration simplifies research and significantly reduces the time required to gather and analyze key information. As a result, you can deliver more informed and timely credit assessments, boosting the efficiency and accuracy of your analyses.
Analyze Acquisition Strategies to Drive Deal Insights
Chat Workspace
Prompt: What was the strategic rationale presented by Merck & Co., Inc.'s management for their recent acquisition of Verona Pharma PLC? Tell me about market reactions for both companies. What are potential implications of this acquisition in relation to Moody's assessment of Merck & Co., Inc.
Sources: M', News, Earnings
Why it work: For investment bankers and M&A professionals, this prompt highlights Merck’s strategic rationale for acquiring Verona Pharma, along with market reactions and Moody’s analysis. It showcases key growth strategies, such as the company’s expanded respiratory portfolio and robust innovation pipeline. By analyzing market responses, you gain valuable insights into investor sentiment and deal valuation accuracy, helping you make smarter decisions for future transactions.
Additionally, understanding how Moody’s views the acquisition and its impact on Merck’s creditworthiness can help you shape financing strategies and manage risks. With this knowledge, you can structure deals more effectively, offer better advice to clients, and anticipate the broader market and financial impacts of similar M&A activities.
Analyze Forecasts and Industry Trends to Assess Creditworthiness
Chat Workspace
Prompt: What did the management of KB Home state on their latest earnings call about the impact of high mortgage rates on demand and their sales forecast? How does their industry forecast compare to Moody's forecast? How does management's forecasted performance compare to Moody's outlook on KB Home?
Sources: M', News, Earnings
Why it works: This prompt helps credit analysts evaluate a company’s sensitivity to interest rate changes and the potential impacts on demand and revenue. By comparing management’s perspective with Moody’s outlook, you can identify discrepancies, evaluate the reliability of financial projections, and uncover potential risks.
Additionally, industry forecasts offer valuable context on market conditions and competitive positioning. With these insights, you’ll be better equipped to assess the company’s creditworthiness, debt-servicing ability, and overall financial stability, helping you make more informed investment decisions and assess risk with greater confidence.
Top Tips for Reverse Engineering AI Answers with Moody’s Research Assistant
How to Work Backward for Better Prompts
Sometimes the best way to get better results from AI tools like Moody’s Research Assistant is by analyzing its responses and working backward. By understanding what went wrong (or right), you can refine your prompts for sharper outputs. Here’s how to reverse-engineer AI responses to continually improve your interactions.
1. Sharpen the focus
- Spot missing details: Look for areas where the response lacks depth, specificity, or key information.
- Evaluate according to expectations: Compare the AI’s output to known data or your expectations to make sure outputs are aligned with what you need.
- Ask “why” questions: Dig into why the response might be misaligned. Was the prompt too vague, too broad, or missing key context?
2. Use Feedback Loops to Improve Prompts
- Break down the response: Analyze the structure of the output to understand how the AI interpreted your prompt.
- Test small changes: Adjust one element of your prompt — like adding context, rephrasing, or narrowing the scope — and see how it shifts the output.
- Iterate intentionally: Treat each response as a learning opportunity, refining your prompts step by step.
3. Craft New Prompts from Partial Successes
- Leverage what worked: If parts of the response were useful, build on those sections to create more targeted prompts.
- Address overlooked areas: Use the gaps in the response to guide the next iteration, focusing on what the AI missed.
- Combine specific and exploratory elements: Mix exact instructions with open-ended questions to balance detail and creativity.
Reverse engineering AI responses isn’t about fixing mistakes, it’s about learning how to ask better questions. With tools like Moody’s Research Assistant, this approach allows you to fine-tune your prompts and extract deeper, more relevant insights.
Stay tuned for our next installment, where we’ll explore prompts for fundamental entity analysis.
About the author:
Caroline Hedgcock is an Assistant Director of Customer Success at Moody’s, where she specializes in helping clients optimize their use of Moody’s Research Assistant. A leader in AI prompting strategies, Caroline works closely with financial institutions to streamline workflows, accelerate analysis, and unlock deeper insights leveraging Moody’s GenAI-powered Research Assistant.
With extensive expertise in applying advanced prompting techniques, Caroline ensures that clients harness the full capabilities of the Research Assistant to enhance decision-making and operational efficiency. Her approach bridges technical innovation with practical application, helping organizations unlock the benefits of embedding GenAI into their daily workflows.