Reviewing Financial Analysis

Reviewing Financial Analysis

When to use this skill

• When a financial conclusion must be quality-checked before action.
• When the user asks for challenge, red-team, or assumption review.
• When analysis may be affected by narrative bias or stale data.

Workflow

1. Plan

• Define what is being reviewed: model, memo, thesis, or recommendation.
• Define review dimensions: source quality, assumptions, method validity, risk completeness.

2. Validate

• Confirm every key claim has source evidence.
• Confirm assumptions are explicit and internally consistent.
• Confirm uncertainty is represented with ranges/scenarios.

3. Execute

• Produce a findings-first audit.
• Label issues by severity (Critical/High/Medium/Low).
• Provide concrete remediation steps.

Instructions

• Prioritize factual integrity over persuasive writing.
• Reject single-point certainty when sensitivity is high.
• Require downside and disconfirming evidence.
• Flag these anti-patterns:
  • No citations for key claims
  • Narrative-only conclusions
  • Hidden assumptions
  • Recency bias
  • Confirmation bias

Review checklist

• Evidence traceability check
• Assumption consistency check
• Method appropriateness check
• Sensitivity and scenario check
• Risk disclosure check
• Bias check

Output template

## Financial Analysis Audit

### Verdict
- Status: <PASS/WARN/FAIL>

### Findings (by severity)
1. [Critical] <issue> | Why it matters: <...> | Fix: <...>
2. [High] <issue> | Why it matters: <...> | Fix: <...>

### Confidence Statement
- Confidence: <High/Medium/Low>
- Primary uncertainty drivers: <...>

Error handling

• If source evidence is missing, fail review until evidence is attached.
• If methods mismatch the question type, require method replacement.
• If uncertainty is underreported, block final recommendation.

Resources

• normalizing-financial-statements
• valuing-company
• analyzing-macro-regime
• analyzing-business-quality