Impact Analysis

Impact Analysis

One object carries this skill: the transmission chain, written as event, channel, driver, line item, action. A shock reaches a share price only by reaching a named landing, a financial line item or the valuation input a discount rate moves directly, so a claim that cannot name where it lands is a mood about a theme and does not ship. This is the work between .agents/skills/morning-note/SKILL.md, which says something happened, and the models, which say what a company is worth.

Evidence labels, source tiers, staleness, the readiness posture and the intake limits: .agents/skills/research-conventions/SKILL.md, read before the first deliverable.

The exposure map is the default output. Absent a position list the user supplied, the report names candidates in research-queue language and says in one sentence what would convert the screen into an action. Every name in it is a research candidate until the user says otherwise.

Step 1: Frame the shock and freeze the as-of

Write the event in one sentence carrying four things: what changed, who decided it, the date it takes effect, and what was expected before it. The last one is the whole analysis in miniature: a fully anticipated shock reaches the line item and never reaches the price.

Timing bucket. Every claim in the report carries one of four, and the headline claim carries its bucket in the first two sentences:

Freeze the as-of. Record one moment for the whole set of time-sensitive inputs (prices, consensus, the macro series, the policy text as published) and state it at the top. An input with no as-of is a gap rather than an estimate.

Read the mandate before asking anything. Sectors and geographies in scope, horizon, benchmark and delivery preferences come from user-tier memory per .agents/skills/research-conventions/references/intake.md; ask only about the forks it leaves open, at most three questions, and take the recommended option when the user skips.

Depth. Default working analysis. A single "what does this mean for X" is a first pass. Bands and cut order: .agents/skills/research-conventions/references/depth.md.

Done when the event sentence carries its effective date and what was expected before it, the headline claim carries one timing bucket, the freeze-time as-of is written down, and the output mode is stated as an exposure map or as a named list the user supplied.

Step 2: Name the channel or hold the claim

Every impact is one written chain with five links:

Event → channel (the mechanism that carries it) → driver (the operating quantity that moves: units, price per unit, input cost per unit, the rate paid, the days of working capital) → line item → action.

The landing comes from a closed set: revenue (net interest income for a bank or a lender), gross margin, opex, interest, tax, capex, working capital, share count, and the valuation input itself (the discount rate, and the multiple that carries it) for a shock that reaches the price through no operating line at all. Which of them a given channel reaches first is governed by .agents/skills/impact-analysis/references/channels.md.

Worked shape: a 100bp policy-rate cut runs through the rates channel, lowers the coupon on the floating-rate half of the debt, lands in interest expense from the next reset date, and the action is to watch interest expense in the first print after that reset.

A claim with no channel goes back to source work. The next move is a search, not a softer sentence: the primary text of the rule or release, the company's segment and geographic disclosure, and the input-cost or hedging note. Where the chain still will not close, the item ships as an observation with no implication attached, and the report says what would close it.

The event runs through a channel not already mapped, or the first affected line item is not obvious from the disclosure: read .agents/skills/impact-analysis/references/channels.md, which carries the standing channels with the line items each reaches first, its typical lag and the tell that it is happening.

Done when every impact claim in the draft is one chain with all five links written out, and every claim that will not complete the chain is either removed or listed as source work naming the document that would complete it.

Step 3: Separate the orders of effect

Three orders, reported in separate rows or paragraphs, at declining confidence, never blended into one conclusion.

A second-order claim inherits the uncertainty of the direct claim under it and adds a behavioural assumption, so a conclusion blending a direct and a third-order effect at one confidence reads as evidence while being arithmetic on a guess. Where a third-order effect is the whole reason a name is in the table, say so in the row.

Done when every claim carries its order, the orders sit in separate rows or paragraphs, and no sentence states a second or third-order claim in the language .agents/skills/research-conventions/references/evidence.md reserves for a sourced one.

Step 4: Build the exposure table

Find the names from disclosure rather than reputation: a name enters the table because a disclosed figure puts it there.

• screen_stocks for the candidate universe by sector, size and geography.
• get_sec_filing for the segment note, the geographic revenue split, the input-cost and hedging notes, the debt maturity schedule, and the risk-factor section, which often names the exposure in the company's own words.
• get_financial_statements, get_financial_ratios and get_growth_metrics for the line item the channel lands on and its trailing sensitivity.
• get_company_overview for consensus and the estimate history, get_daily_prices for moves since the event, get_financial_ratios for the multiple against its own range (priceToEarningsRatio, evToEBITDA).
• get_economic_indicator, get_treasury_rates and get_market_risk_premium for the macro series behind the shock; get_economic_calendar for the releases that will confirm or deny it.
• WebSearch and WebFetch for the primary text: the rule, the tariff schedule, the agency release, the company statement. The text of the instrument beats every summary of it.

Rank by sign first, then magnitude, timing, confidence, directness and priced-in status, so the most exposed and least priced names sit at the top.

Magnitude comes from a disclosed figure with its arithmetic shown, in the units the line item uses: basis points for a margin, percent or currency for a level, per .agents/skills/research-conventions/references/market-data-rules.md. Where the disclosure will not size it, write the bound instead of a point ("imported inputs are under 20% of cost of sales, so the gross-margin effect is at most 180bp") and name the disclosure that would size it.

Row-merge discipline. The rule for sharing a row is in .agents/skills/research-conventions/references/judgment.md. The case it protects here is one name reached by one shock through two channels with different signs and lags: that is two rows, never a merged one.

Both signs, or the reason there is only one. A shock with only losers usually means the search stopped at the obvious side: the domestic substitute, the toller who passes the cost through, the supplier of the workaround. A one-sided table carries the sentence explaining why the other side is empty.

Done when every row names its channel, first line item and direction; every magnitude is either sized with its arithmetic shown or written as a bound naming the disclosure that would size it; every row carries an evidence label and an as-of; both signs are populated or the one-sided reason is written; and no two rows were merged on theme alone.