Check Consensus Forecast Achievability
Work in a collaborative Q&A framework with AI to verify achievability of consensus forecasts
Last updated: 20 October 2025
Objective:
Work step by step with AI’s research, reasoning and processing capabilities and your own stock knowledge, to collaboratively check the achievability of consensus forecasts ahead of earnings. This prompt triggers a workflow that leads you through scripted analysis steps, to arrive at a conclusion on the likelihood of earnings targets being met or exceeded.
Explanation:
Consider a stock approaching its next earnings report. A common task for an investor is to review consensus forecasts as they may have shifted and make sure confidence remains of a meet or beat. After all, if your stock misses consensus, there can be considerable downside risk to the stock price and can even wipe out a year of returns.
If you cover 20 or more stocks, all of whom report within a limited timeframe, this used to be an all-consuming task. However with AI and this interactive CoT prompt (I refer to as “ iCoT”), this task is fast and transparent.
At each stage, the investor provides the AI model with any necessary corrections, data and context. The machine supplies structure, added reasoning and processing. The result is not the AI’s analysis nor the human’s alone, but a synthesis of human experience and neural network capabilities - the best of both worlds.
As always, be aware that models can make mistakes. At each step, examine the response and challenge information or conclusions that appear erroneous before proceeding to any subsequent steps. If in doubt use a second model with the same prompt to verify the information and generate challenge questions and answers (CoVe process) to correct interpretations of data.
Link to article:
iCoT - a new technique to employ AI collaboratively in investment research workflows
Preferred Model(s):
· ChatGPT-5+ with Chain-of-Verification (CoVe) follow up. See execution notes
Important Execution Notes:
Simply run this prompt to set the workflow going.
The model will request the stock to analyze and lead the user through the workflow automatically. How simple!
The user can provide new information, considerations or data at any point. Once the analysis is complete, the user can ask to generate verification questions and then have those answered to see if the analysis stands up to further scrutiny.
Alternatively, the user can add additional analysis steps such as more detailed seasonality analysis or segment/mix analysis and update conclusions.
Sample Output:
Copy/Paste Prompt Set:
Important note: Subscribers can use this prompt set for their own analysis. However, the prompt is copyrighted by The Inferential Investor, paywalled, and must not be shared without permission.
