PromptSharp › Daily briefs › Finance › October 5, 2026

Finance prompt of the day

October 5, 2026 · for Investment banking, sales & trading, equity research, FP&A. One sharp, copy-paste prompt — free, every weekday.

You are an analyst assessing the reinvestment economics of [COMPANY]. I will provide the data (capex, D&A, revenue, operating cash flow, growth). Produce:
1. A maintenance-vs-growth capex read (approximate split with your reasoning) in a TABLE, plus capex as a % of revenue and of D&A over the periods provided.
2. Whether growth is SELF-FUNDING from operating cash flow or requires external capital.
3. The reinvestment RATE and what it implies for future growth durability.
4. The 2-3 inputs most worth verifying (especially the maintenance-capex assumption).
Use only figures I provide; clearly label the maintenance/growth split as an estimate and never fabricate cash flows.

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 “Capex & reinvestment-runway analysis”, step by step

The situation this prompt is built for: You want to understand how much a company must reinvest and whether growth is self-funding. Below is exactly what to feed it and what comes back — no model-specific tricks, it runs the same in any chat AI.

What each placeholder does

Demo profile for the example fills: an equity research associate on a mid-cap sector coverage team, working in Excel, a chat AI model, and your firm's data terminal. Swap in your own context — or save it once at /profile and copied prompts arrive pre-filled.

• [COMPANY] — this is the input the whole output quality hangs on. Demo fill: what you sell in one plain sentence, plus who buys it. Leave it vague and the model pads with boilerplate; make it concrete and every section downstream sharpens.

What the model hands back

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

1. A maintenance-vs-growth capex read (approximate split with your reasoning) in a TABLE, plus capex as a % of revenue and of D&A over the periods provided.
2. Whether growth is SELF-FUNDING from operating cash flow or requires external capital.
3. The reinvestment RATE and what it implies for future growth durability.
4. The 2-3 inputs most worth verifying (especially the maintenance-capex assumption).

Why this structure works

Capital intensity determines whether growth actually creates value or just consumes cash; separating maintenance from growth capex and testing self-funding is the reinvestment lens headline growth hides.

On Pro, the capex benchmarks and maintenance-split heuristics are tuned to your sector's asset intensity from your profile, so the reinvestment read reflects the right baseline.

When to use it — and when not to

Reach for it when

• You want to understand how much a company must reinvest and whether growth is self-funding.
• You can actually supply the inputs it asks for ([COMPANY]) — this prompt is an amplifier for real context, not a substitute for 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

“Capex & reinvestment-runway analysis” 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 an IB associate drafting marketing materials for [TARGET]. I will paste the key facts/data pack. Produce: 1. A CIM OUTLINE with numbered sections (Executive…

You are a macro strategist writing a cross-asset read. I will paste the current levels/moves across [rates, equities, credit, FX, commodities]. Produce: 1. A…

You are a risk-aware PM reviewing whether and how big to size [TICKER] in a portfolio I describe [current positions/factor/sector exposures, mandate, risk limits].…

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: filling [COMPANY] with a vague summary. The output can only be as specific as this input — generic context in, generic deliverable out. Fix: paste raw specifics (real names, real numbers, real constraints), then trim the model’s output, not your input.
• 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.

• [Lenny's Podcast] OpenAI’s Head of ChatGPT: We’re entering a new era of AI (again) | Tibo Sottiaux (podcast) — Tibo Sottiaux leads ChatGPT and Codex at OpenAI. Under his stewardship, OpenAI has shipped some of its most consequential consumer launches: Codex, ChatGPT Work, and most…
• MintEval: Do LLMs Implement the Trading Strategy You Asked For? A Behavioural-Equivalence Benchmark for… (arxiv) — Large language models are moving from producing trading signals to writing the code that executes them. The failure mode of the second role is silent: generated code runs, a…

Quick answers

Is “Capex & reinvestment-runway analysis” 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 80 prompts across 5 sections — the same single source the paid brief reads. Same date, same prompt: the archive never silently changes under you.

What goes in the [BRACKETED] placeholders?

Your context — the walkthrough above covers each one. The short rule: the more concrete the fill (real names, numbers, constraints), the sharper the output. Save your details once at /profile and web copies arrive pre-filled.

How do I get this in my inbox instead?

The capture form above. The PromptSharp Finance email edition lands every weekday morning, plus a Sunday roundup; the web issue stays free here either way.

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