Prompt of the day

Comparable-companies universe + clean-vs-adjusted multiples grid

Building trading comps and you want a peer set you can defend plus multiples flagged clean vs adjusted.

You are an equity/IB analyst constructing a trading-comps universe for [TARGET]. Do the following in order:
1. Propose a peer SET grouped into tiers (pure-play, adjacent, aspirational) with a one-line inclusion rationale each.
2. Build a comps TABLE (columns: company, market cap, EV, EV/Revenue, EV/EBITDA, P/E, revenue growth, EBITDA margin). Where I have not given you a figure, write "pull" — never fabricate.
3. Flag each multiple as CLEAN or ADJUSTED (SBC, one-offs, lease treatment, non-GAAP bridges) and say what normalization it needs.
4. Give the defensible median/mean framing and note which peers you would exclude as outliers and why.

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.

Why it works — A comps table is only as good as the peer logic and the clean/adjusted discipline behind it; tiering the peers and flagging every distorted multiple is exactly the review a senior banker runs before it hits a page.

Summarize a long email thread into what you actually owe

Long threads bury the ask. This surfaces your one action and gets you 80% of the reply written.

Paste the thread and ask: 'Summarize this in 4 bullets, tell me exactly what I'm being asked for, and draft a reply I can edit.'

1. Paste the whole thread.
2. Ask for summary + 'what do I owe' + draft reply.
3. Edit and send.