PromptSharp › Daily briefs › Finance › August 31, 2026

Finance prompt of the day

August 31, 2026 · for Investment banking, sales & trading, equity research, FP&A. One sharp, copy-paste prompt — free, every weekday.

You are an analyst scrutinizing an ADJUSTED-EBITDA bridge I paste (reported EBITDA -> add-backs -> adjusted). Produce:
1. An ADD-BACK-BY-ADD-BACK review: for each item, is it genuinely one-time/non-cash, recurring-in-disguise, or aggressive; and the direction it flatters the number. Use only figures I provide.
2. A RECAST: a conservative 'clean' EBITDA that strips the questionable add-backs, clearly labeled as an alternative view, with the resulting leverage/multiple impact where computable.
3. A PATTERN read: are add-backs growing as a share of EBITDA over time, and what that implies.
4. The 3 add-backs I should challenge management on and the specific question for each.

Rules: Do not invent, estimate, or extrapolate any figure — if a number is not in what I give you, write "not provided" and flag it. Mark every claim I should verify externally before relying on it. Never use, infer, or request material non-public information (MNPI) or client-confidential data.

What changed for Finance

How to run “Adjusted-EBITDA add-back bridge scrutiny”, step by step

The situation this prompt is built for: A company leans on 'adjusted' EBITDA and you want to scrutinize every add-back before you underwrite it. Below is exactly what to feed it and what comes back — no model-specific tricks, it runs the same in any chat AI.

What the model hands back

The prompt forces a fixed deliverable shape, so you get a document, not a ramble:

1. An ADD-BACK-BY-ADD-BACK review: for each item, is it genuinely one-time/non-cash, recurring-in-disguise, or aggressive; and the direction it flatters the number. Use only figures I provide.
2. A RECAST: a conservative 'clean' EBITDA that strips the questionable add-backs, clearly labeled as an alternative view, with the resulting leverage/multiple impact where computable.
3. A PATTERN read: are add-backs growing as a share of EBITDA over time, and what that implies.
4. The 3 add-backs I should challenge management on and the specific question for each.

Why this structure works

Adjusted EBITDA is where cherry-picking hides in plain sight; forcing a per-add-back verdict, a clean recast, and a trend read stops a flattering non-GAAP number from being underwritten as truth.

On Pro, the add-back scrutiny arrives calibrated to your sector's typical adjustment games from the profile you set once.

When to use it — and when not to

Reach for it when

• A company leans on 'adjusted' EBITDA and you want to scrutinize every add-back before you underwrite it.
• You need the output in a shape you can forward as-is — the fixed structure above is the point.

Skip it when

• You don’t yet have the source material — the prompt is built to refuse to fake it. Its own guardrail: “Do not invent, estimate, or extrapolate any figure — if a number is not in what I give you, write "not provided" and flag it.” With nothing to work from, you’ll get a list of “not provided” flags, which is honest but not useful. Collect the inputs first.
• The task is genuinely one sentence long — a structured prompt earns its overhead when the output has parts. For quick one-off questions, just ask.

Adapting today’s prompt for adjacent roles

“Adjusted-EBITDA add-back bridge scrutiny” sits in the Financial Analysis & Modeling lane of the finance pool. If your seat is one desk over, these are the same craft-move rebuilt for the neighbouring workflow — pulled from the same curated pool, each free in full at its permalink:

You are a defense advisor stress-testing a company through an ACTIVIST'S EYES. Company: [DESCRIBE: business, segments, balance sheet, governance, recent performance I…

You are a trader assessing SQUEEZE / CROWDING RISK in [NAME]. Using only data I paste (short interest, days-to-cover, borrow rate/availability, float, options…

You are a buy-side analyst building a THESIS-MONITORING TRACKER for a position: [NAME + my thesis in 2-3 sentences + the numbers I'm underwriting]. Produce: 1. A KPI…

Common failure modes (and the fixes)

• Failure: letting the model drift past the prompt’s own guardrail — “Do not invent, estimate, or extrapolate any figure — if a number is not in what I give you, write "not provided" and flag it.” Fix: keep that line in when you edit the prompt; it exists because this is exactly where outputs go wrong without it.
• Failure: letting the model drift past the prompt’s own guardrail — “Mark every claim I should verify externally before relying on it.” Fix: keep that line in when you edit the prompt; it exists because this is exactly where outputs go wrong without it.
• Failure: letting the model drift past the prompt’s own guardrail — “Never use, infer, or request material non-public information (MNPI) or client-confidential data.” Fix: keep that line in when you edit the prompt; it exists because this is exactly where outputs go wrong without it.
• Failure: accepting the first pass. Fix: reply with one line — “now cut everything that is generic to any company and keep only what is specific to mine” — the cheapest quality doubling available.

Where AI is landing for investment banking right now

Context for today’s prompt, from the same screened sources the daily brief reads. Our read, with sources linked — the pattern across items like these is consistent: the professionals getting leverage from AI are the ones feeding it real working context, which is exactly the muscle today’s prompt trains.

• [a16z Podcast] Why a16z Launched the Machine Age Fund | Jen Kha (podcast) — a16z Managing Partner and Head of Global Partnerships Jen Kha joins MTS hosts Theo Jaffee and Sophia Dew to discuss a16z's Machine Age Fund and the investment thesis behind…
• RetailAgent: Structured Adverse Timing in Self-Conditioned Multimodal LLM Trading Agents (arxiv) — In financial markets, a sequential policy that reacts systematically to price movements may become predictable to other market participants. This paper studies whether large…

Quick answers

Is “Adjusted-EBITDA add-back bridge scrutiny” free to use?

Yes — every weekday issue of the PromptSharp Finance publishes one full pool prompt free on the web, and it stays free in the archive. Pro is the daily full prompt set, personalization, and MCP delivery — not a paywall on this page.

Which AI model does this prompt work with?

Any of them. Every PromptSharp prompt is model-agnostic plain text — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, or a local model. No plugins, no custom GPTs; paste and run.

How is the finance prompt of the day chosen?

Deterministic rotation over the curated finance pool — currently 75 prompts across 5 sections — the same single source the paid brief reads. Same date, same prompt: the archive never silently changes under you.

How do I get this in my inbox instead?

The capture form above — PromptSharp Finance status is honest: live briefs send every weekday; pre-launch verticals email their free list the day the email edition starts.

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