Stock Pitches - I've gotten a lot of DMs and inbound emails from undergrads on putting them together. You need to leverage AI - but you will still have to do the work to understand the business and judgement your ultimate recommendation

AI prompts I tell current undergrads and IB analysts interviewing for hf jobs to use to start a stock pitch:

1. Understanding the business - Yes it sounds basic but people don't take the time to do it. Stock pitches are given conversationally to judges in a competition or a senior analyst in an interview.

AI Prompt to get things started: Explain [company XYZ]'s business model in plain language - what they actually sell or provide, describe its customer type and end-market.

After you do this - you need to really be able to explain to a non-finance member what the business does in 30-45 seconds) forces you to prioritize and thats how much time you have in real interviews. I've interviews where the interviewer PM/analyst simply loses interest and starts looking at their phone or screen

2. Key industry terms/jargon and KPIs - To sound like you know the company you need to speak the language of the industry its in. A perfect example is analyzing convenience stores - you dont refer to their profits from gas as gasoline sales minus cost of goods sold. It actually gallons sold multiplied by a fuel margin on a cents per gallon basis.

AI prompt to get things started: Provide me with the key industry terminology/metrics used to monitor company XYZ's and its peers operations. It should be language and terms used by investors, sell-side analysts and company management teams. Provide the acronyms used for these terms as well.

After you do this, read the last three transcripts and look for commentary on these metrics so you start getting a sense of how these metrics are trending. Again, AI saves you time, then you have to understand the business further.

3. Industry structure: You need to understand the chess board relating to the industry of the company you are researching. Are they dependent on only a few large customers? Have their been any new entrants taking market share with a new business model? Has a regulatory change impacted pricing?

AI prompt to get things started: Give me an overview of the last 10 years of the industry and any structural changes such as changes in customer concentration, consolidation among peers, supply chain or new entrants. Please identify events and the timing when any of these items saw a change.

After you do this, you will need to then form an opinion on where you think the industry is going and why - don't rely on AI on this you should play out what you think will happen. Read current events, comments from management teams in this sector etc

I'm happy to continue on this as I can go through the entire stock pitch process or another area where you can incorporate AI into your research process as you put together stuff your clubs etc. I wanted to put out something where the undergrads focused on finance could see something concrete

Happy to hear from undergrads on what they want to hear next or questions!