The quality of your prompts directly shapes the depth and clarity of your outputs, especially in financial analysis and ratings evaluation. From analyzing a company’s upgrade and downgrade triggers to generating a detailed rating action report, well-crafted prompts unlock actionable insights from complex data and information.
As an analyst, portfolio manager, sales, or investor relations professional, you can use the following prompts to streamline your workflows and get the answers you need in seconds. Scroll down to explore three rigorously tested prompts that deliver structured, decision-ready results and learn how to apply them to your own analysis and reporting.
What is Ratings Analysis?
Ratings analysis refers to the evaluation of a company’s creditworthiness and the factors influencing its credit rating. This includes assessing financial performance, qualitative factors, and upgrade or downgrade triggers — specific thresholds that may prompt changes in a company’s rating or outlook. Well-crafted prompts can guide the analysis by focusing on key metrics, trends, and comparisons for clearer insights.
Analyzing Movement Patterns
To analyze rating movement patterns, an analyst examines historical trends, such as financial indicators over the past three years, current ratings, and market dynamics. Identifying recurring factors or triggers behind upgrades and downgrades provides a clearer understanding of the underlying patterns. Tailored prompts simplify this process, supporting a structured approach to uncover valuable insights efficiently.
Prompts that Deliver
We’ve outlined some of our top performing sample prompts below. Each one has been tested and validated by our team to ensure it delivers decision-ready outputs.
Analyze Thresholds: Ratings, Performance, and Triggers
Chat Workspace
Prompt:
In a table, detail the upgrade and downgrade thresholds for Ford Motor Company and their peers. Include the relevant last 3 years of key indicators, current rating, and outlook. Lastly, synthesize the companies' recent performance in relation to thresholds.
Why it works:
This prompt combines report data with financial and ratings data. It illustrates how close an entity is to a "trigger", historical performance in relation to the trigger, and how an entity and their peers' thresholds may differ.
Examine Historical Ratings and Performance
Chat Workspace
Prompt:
In a table, detail Ford Motor Company's upgrade and downgrade thresholds over the last 3 years. Include the relevant adjusted annual key indicators from each year, ratings and outlook over the last 3 years.
Why it works:
This prompt helps users understand how an entity's historical performance aligns with its outcomes (ratings and outlook) and past evaluations, providing a clearer picture of trends and key drivers behind rating changes.
Create a Comprehensive Rating Action Report
Chat Workspace
Prompt:
Write a rating action report on @Univision. Include the following sections: Detailed business profile (at least 200 words), current rating and outlook, previous rating, rationale behind rating action (at least 300 words), strengths and weaknesses, insight into their market positioning, comparison of recent earnings call to upgrade/downgrade factors, forecast, insight into governance, most recent adjusted key indicators compared to peers in a table, last 3 years of adjusted key indicators in a table. Response should be around 2500 words.
Why it works:
This prompt is helpful in reporting to customers about market updates and justifying or forming an opinion on a client’s current position. By addressing financial metrics, governance, and market positioning, it provides a thorough, data-driven analysis.
Note:
This prompt is also re-runable. Every time there's an action to an issuer, you can quickly update the name in the prompt and get an understanding of what led to the action and what it means for the issuer moving forward.
Top Prompting Tips for Optimization with Moody's Research Assistant
Writing an effective prompt is a skill that can significantly impact the quality of insights you receive. Even minor adjustments can lead to clearer, more actionable, and highly relevant outputs. Use these tips to maximize the effectiveness of your prompts:
- Refine as you go: Start with a draft prompt, test it, and tweak it to improve clarity and precision. Small changes can lead to sharper outputs.
- Specify timeframes: Be clear about the dates or periods you’re focusing on — such as “the last 3 years” or “next 12 months.” This keeps the analysis on track.
- Apply finance vocabulary: Use specific terms like “EBITDA margin,” “cash flow trends,” or “leverage ratio” to guide the assistant toward relevant insights.
- Ask for depth: Combine perspectives like “strengths AND market positioning” to get well-rounded responses instead of a narrow view.
- Be direct: Use clear action words like “compare,” “forecast,” or “summarize” so the assistant knows exactly what to do.
- Build in layers: Start with a broad question to set the stage, then narrow down with follow-ups for refined answers.
- Double-check results: Review outputs with a critical eye. If something seems off, adjust the prompt to address gaps or inconsistencies.
These tips will help you unlock the full potential of AI-powered tools like Moody’s Research Assistant, turning vast amounts of data into focused insights. Whether you’re analyzing a single issuer or exploring sector-wide trends, the right prompt is the key to the right answer.
Stay tuned for our next installment, where we’ll explore prompts for market trends.
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.