A couple of days ago at my internship, my fellow interns and I gave a presentation to a senior team member about how we would personally use AI to improve the daily flow of work. For context, my internship is in Wealth Management, and we presented a variety of ideas. Some of the bigger ones included risk monitoring and fraud detection, portfolio analysis, and automated messages to clients for birthdays and other important events.

I’m starting with this point to show how quickly AI integration into finance is accelerating. Students who are already acclimated to using it for their own benefit will have a major advantage over those who aren’t once they start their first job in the field. In this article, I’m going to show you an easy prompt I use with Microsoft Copilot every day, one I highly recommend you try yourself.

Staying up to date with the financial markets is crucial for all finance students. Treasury yields, index values, stock prices, and other key metrics change by the second. Yes, you can scour the internet for this information and find reliable sources, but that’s not the most efficient way to go about it. Using AI is a faster and more accurate way to accomplish the same goal in seconds, and below is a simple prompt that gives you exactly what you need.

I’ll explain how I came up with the prompt in a second, but first, just take a look at the prompt and its corresponding output.

I put the following into Copilot:

In PDF format: create a one page comprehensive summary of market indicators that a UBS CSA could update every morning using this same prompt. Follow the guidelines I provide.

Section 1: General overview -Changes in… 1. S&P 500 Index 2. Dow Jones avg 3. NASDAQ Composite 4. Top 3 gainers and losers in all 3

Section 2: interest rates, treasury yields, US dollar/inflation data 1. 10 year yield 2. 2 year yield 3. Dollar index (dxy) 4. Relevant commentary by the fed from the past 24 hours

Section 3: earnings reports -include any major releases (refer to yahoo finance)

Section 4: sector performances -include most recent updated performance metrics for all S&P sectors

Section 5: Miscellaneous assets -Note any 24 hour changes in -gold (XAU/USD) -Bitcoin -Price of crude oil

Section 6: top stories -Include your 3 picks (via yahoo finance and Bloomberg) for top stories from the past day and also include 3 things to keep an eye on for the current day. 

Note: When I say "refer" I want you to pull data not just create a template. 

Based on CSIMarket YTD sector returns through July 23:

Source: CSIMarket

As you can see, Copilot provided a great overall overview based on the guidelines I provided. Now I’m going to quickly explain how I came up with the prompt by answering some questions you might have. 

First and foremost, 

“Why frame it from the point of view of a CSA?”

At my internship, the Client Service Service Associate or CSA is responsible for making a report very similar to this every morning that the team can take a look at. This is a typical task at a lot of firms so I provided that as context so the software could have a better reference point for my goal output. Providing context like this is very helpful for getting a better output. 

Another thing you may be wondering is, 

“Was this the first variation of the prompt?”

No, I made several changes to ultimately get this output. You’ll notice the note I left at the bottom about pulling data. In earlier versions, Copilot was simply making a blank template based on the sources I told it to reference. By including that slight change, I got much better results.

Furthermore, you might wonder:

“Have you tried this prompt in other AI models? How does the output differ?”

Yes, I tried using both ChatGPT and Grok as well but found Copilot works best for this prompt specifically. If the prompt was adjusted slightly, I’m sure I could get equally good results from other softwares but right now I like the way it works with Copilot. 

All in all, this prompt is a simple and actionable way you can start using AI to make your life easier. I hope you find this helpful and I am excited to share more strategies going forward!