Can AI Prompts Help Analyze Earnings Risk Before It Hits the Tape?

Earnings season often delivers surprises; not necessarily because the numbers are shocking, but mostly because expectations are misaligned. Many models still rely on backward-looking metrics or consensus estimates without adjusting for macro shifts, input costs or margin trends.

Welcome back to AI in Investment Research & Finance, your weekly guide to market developments, structured research and high-impact prompting.

In recent issues, we’ve looked at AI prompting from several angles, including value strategies, macro signals, and exchange-traded fund (ETF) positioning, spotlighting funds such as MOAT, SPLV, JEPI, GLD, BITO, EDOG, AIQ, QGRW, OMAH and QAI. We’ve also shown how analysts and fund marketers use large language models (LLMs) to turn raw data into sharper insights.

Table of Contents

• This Week's Focus: Prompting for Earnings Risk Before It Hits the Tape

• 3 Prompts to Think Ahead of the Earnings Call

  • Message from Our Partner: AIR Insider (With Vincen …

    • Also in Focus: Gold and Defensive Positioning

    • AI Career Moves: Exciting AI Jobs This Week

    • AI in Markets: Key Trends & Upcoming Events

With Q2 2025 earnings season underway, this week’s focus is on how LLMs can support positioning before results are released. A recent report by LSEG shows that its fine-tuned LLMs can now parse earnings call transcripts at scale, classifying speaker-level sentiment, identifying events and themes and flagging early risk signals that traditional analysis often misses. This signals a shift: AI is moving from summary to signal generation.

Today, we’ll explore how prompting can help analysts, fund managers and strategists anticipate potential pressure points, detect sentiment surprises and simulate pricing scenarios. The aim is to enhance portfolio positioning before the market reacts.

3 Prompts to Think Ahead of the Earnings Call

These prompts are designed to move beyond headline expectations. Use them to anticipate pressure points, identify mispriced risks and generate decision-ready insights before earnings season surprises the market. For each of these prompts, you should consider assigning a role (such as portfolio manager) and asking for credible references as well as an output format (such as bullet points, table, etc)

📌 Prompt 1: Anticipate Margin Pressure by Sector Recession Risk

As an equity analyst, identify S&P 500 sectors most at risk of margin compression this quarter (e.g. Q3 2025). Consider changes in input costs, wage growth and FX exposure. Use Q2 macro data to estimate which sectors are most vulnerable and explain why. 

💡 Why it works: Pushes beyond earnings-per-share estimates and into operating pressure narratives.

📌 Prompt 2: Spot Discrepancies Between Analyst Forecasts and Macro Trends

Compare analyst earnings forecasts for the US consumer discretionary sector with actual Q2 2025 data on retail sales, wage growth and consumer credit usage. Highlight where expectations may be misaligned due to macro or demand signals, and flag individual stocks in the sector with elevated surprise risk ahead of earnings.

💡 Why it works: Combines top-down macro with bottom-up consensus expectations.

📌 Prompt 3: Map Pre-Earnings Risk f an ETF Portfolio

You are an investment analyst at a US asset management firm. The CIO asks for a concise analysis of a leading US-listed tech ETF ([NAME]), focusing on recent performance, sector and top holding exposures and key pre-earnings risks given the current macroeconomic backdrop. Highlight concentration risk, timing of major earnings reports and any catalysts that could affect short-term positioning. Conclude with a recommendation to maintain, increase or reduce exposure for institutional clients.

💡 Why it works: Makes risk exposure more concrete, is time-relevant and action-oriented.

Also in Focus: Gold and Defensive Positioning

Earnings season isn’t just about stocks. It’s also about portfolio resilience. Watch our short video on SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) for a quick look at how the world’s largest gold ETF fits into a volatile market backdrop.

AI Career Moves: Exciting AI Jobs This Week

Looking for your next opportunity in AI? Explore these standout roles across industries and locations:

 📩 Feel free to share this list with anyone looking for AI opportunities!

AI in Markets: Key Trends & Upcoming Events

🤖 FT Live: The AI Revolution – London, November 5-6, 2025
Hosted by the Financial Times, this virtual event series dives into AI’s global impact with sessions on geopolitics, investment, and AI regulation. On-demand content is available alongside upcoming live discussions.

🤖 Web Summit 2025 – Lisbon, November 10–13, 2025
Europe’s biggest tech event returns with a major focus on AI. The 2025 program includes tracks on LLMs, AI governance, enterprise tools, and regulation, with speakers from OpenAI, Meta, and leading policy institutions.

🏛️ OSFI Advances Responsible AI Guidelines for Finance
Canada’s Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) is finalizing Guideline E-23, which will explicitly cover AI and machine learning risks. Expected by September 11, 2025, it emphasizes model validation, human oversight, vendor monitoring, and transparency, highlighting growing regulatory attention on AI governance in banking.

🤖 Hidden AI Prompts Found in Academic Papers
Researchers from 14 institutions, including Waseda and KAIST, hid AI-only prompts like “give a positive review” in preprints to sway peer review, Nikkei reports. The prompts were invisible to humans but detectable by AI tools. Some defended the tactic as a response to AI-reviewed papers, but critics say it raises serious ethical concerns and highlights the need for clear AI rules in publishing.

Stay tuned for next week’s edition, where we’ll explore new AI prompts for deeper sector analysis. To ensure our next newsletter lands in your Inbox, please add our email address to your contacts: [email protected]