Today’s global economy moves fast, and making sense of it demands a sharp understanding of sector dynamics. Whether you’re a strategic planner, investment analyst, credit risk expert, or portfolio manager, our expertly crafted prompts are built to fit your workflows. They’re designed to strip out noise, accelerate analysis, and help you make smarter, faster decisions when and where it counts.
From mapping supply chain shifts to tracking profitability trends or assessing credit risk, we can help deliver insights that can let you benchmark performance, manage exposure, and surface opportunities. By integrating tools like Moody’s Research Assistant into your processes, you can confidently adapt to shifting market realities and strengthen your strategies.
What is sector analysis?
Sector analysis is the practice of examining the economic, competitive, and financial dynamics shaping a specific industry or market segment. It sheds light on everything from regulatory shifts and demand patterns to relevant global and regional trends and the strategies of key players. The goal? To identify risks and opportunities early, understand performance drivers, and build more resilient strategies, all through a data-driven lens.
Prompts that Power Your Workflows
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 Risks and Opportunities in Supply Chains
Chat Workspace
Prompt: What are the second-order effects of ongoing supply chain diversification away from China for the @automotive sector? Summarize Moody's view on impacts to margins, logistics complexity, and geopolitical risk.
Source: Moody's Data & News
Why This Insight is Useful: If you're responsible for long-term planning and competitive positioning, this prompt helps you cut through noise and understand how diversification strategies affect financials, operational complexity, and geopolitical exposure. Use it to sharpen your strategy and manage risk with confidence.
Integration into Workflow: Apply insights from this prompt to refine financial models (especially around margin impacts), update risk assessments to reflect shifting geopolitical landscapes, and inform investment decisions tied to supply chain resilience.
Deliver Concise Industry Snapshots
Chat Workspace
Prompt: Create a 'Sector at a Glance' one-pager for the Consumer Products industry, including key trends, forecasts, risks (should be at least 100 words), sector outlook and summary of rationale, and 5 recent rating actions. Total response should be about 500 words.
Why This Insight is Useful: Perfect for investment analysts or support teams who need a quick but comprehensive read on sector dynamics. This prompt helps streamline research, support strategic decisions, and deliver credible recommendations faster.
Integration into Workflow: Use these one-pagers to power investment memos, client briefings, credit reviews, and internal strategy docs. It’s a fast, efficient way to surface relevant insights and stay on top of sector movement.
Analyze Profitability Trends and Volatility Across Peer Companies
Advanced Query
Prompt: Create a peer set of companies in the @Consumer_Products sector with revenue between $5B and $20B. Then calculate the standard deviation of their adjusted FY EBITA margins for the last 3 years to identify which companies have the most volatile profitability. Additionally, include the last 3 years of EBITA margins, most recent revenue, rating, outlook, and domicile.
Why This Insight is Useful: For credit risk analysts, this is a practical tool to benchmark financial stability, spot volatility, and flag potential outliers. It helps you contextualize company performance and assess creditworthiness more precisely.
Integration into Workflow: Feed the peer set and volatility data into screening tools, internal risk models, or credit reviews. It can also enrich performance dashboards and support stronger, evidence-based recommendations.
Track Early Warning Signs of Financial Distress and Covenant Risk (Bonus)
Chat Workspace
Prompt: What are the early warning indicators of a potential covenant breach for companies in the @US Leveraged Finance market? Summarize the typical sequence of credit metric erosion discussed in Moody's research.
Why This Insight is Useful: For portfolio managers, spotting trouble early is critical. This prompt helps you detect credit deterioration before it becomes a problem, supporting better investment protection and proactive risk mitigation.
Integration into Workflow: Incorporate these indicators into monitoring tools, due diligence templates, or portfolio review cycles. They’ll help you stay a step ahead and maintain portfolio resilience.
Top Tips for Balancing Depth and Conciseness in Your Prompts with Moody’s Research Assistant
Crafting high-quality prompts is essential to getting sharp, usable answers from Moody’s Research Assistant. The key? Be clear, focused, and intentional with your wording. Here are six quick tips to help you get there:
- Clarify Your Objective. Be explicit: do you want a summary, analysis, or next steps? Asking for a “credit risk summary” will guide the tool better than a vague “risk assessment.”
- Focus on Key Insights. Keep it tight. Ask for the top 2–3 trends or risks rather than a full rundown. For example: “What are the top two risks in this sector?”
- Specify the Format. Bullets, lists, or short paragraphs help make results easier to scan and share. Try: “Give me three bullet points summarizing key findings.”
- Be Smart with your Follow-ups. Start broad, then drill down. For example, begin with a high-level overview, then follow up with: “Can you expand on liquidity risks?”
- Emphasize Takeaways. Don’t just ask what’s happening, ask what to do about it. “What actions can mitigate these risks?” is stronger than “What are the risks?”
- Refine and Iterate. Tweak as needed. If your first result is too broad, ask for “key highlights” or the “top 3 points” to zero in on what matters.
By writing with intent and iterating thoughtfully, you’ll get responses that are clearer, faster, and more aligned with your goals.
Interesting in learning more?
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.