I used Claude with an MCP server to prep for an earnings report: six prompts and the tool calls behind them

Before a company reports, I want six things: the date, the consensus, management's guidance, last quarter's call, the options-implied move and the short interest. They live in six different places. Lately I've been asking for them in Claude with the Equibles MCP server connected (I work on Equibles), and I wanted to write down what the assistant actually calls behind each prompt.

The example is SoundHound (SOUN), which reports Q3 on November 5. Every answer below came from tool calls on November 3.

The six prompts

1. "When does SoundHound report Q3, and when is the call?" The assistant calls GetUpcomingInvestorEvents: November 5, 22:00 UTC (5 p.m. Eastern), with a link to the event on SoundHound's investor site.
2. "What do analysts expect, and has it moved?" GetAnalystEstimates: revenue of $62.18M on average from 6 analysts, EPS of -$0.05 from 5, in a snapshot captured October 29.
3. "What's the 2026 revenue guidance, what does it leave for the second half, and has anything happened since that changes it?" GetGuidance, GetFinancialStatement and GetInvestorRelationsNews: $230M to $260M, set August 5; first-half revenue of $106.1M, so the second half needs $123.9M to $153.9M; and a LivePerson acquisition that closed September 4.
4. "Summarize the last earnings call." GetEarningsBrief: record Q2 revenue of $61.9M, up 45%, a GAAP net loss of $42.8M, and the CFO's quote raising the outlook.
5. "What move are options pricing for the report?" GetOptionExpirations, then GetOptionChain for November 6: the $4 straddle cost about $0.52 at the midpoints with the stock at $4.15, a move of about 12.5%.
6. "How much of the stock is sold short?" GetShortInterest: 170.8M shares at the October 15 settlement, 10.1 days of average volume to cover.

The prompt that mattered most was the third

My first version of prompt 3 asked only for the guidance and what it left for the second half. The answer was correct and misleading. The guidance tool's newest source was the August 5 call, and SoundHound closed its acquisition of LivePerson on September 4. LivePerson booked $52.5M of revenue in Q2 on its own, and on the August call the CEO said the outlook would be updated to include it once the deal closed.

So reported Q3 revenue will include 27 days of LivePerson, while the $62.2M consensus is barely above SoundHound's own $61.9M in Q2. Comparing the result with that consensus without knowing about the deal would mislead you.

Adding "has anything happened since that changes it?" made the assistant read the investor relations news and the 8-K list, and the deal showed up. That's the general lesson for any tool-using assistant: a tool answers from what's on file as of its last source, so ask for the date of every number and for what has been filed since.

What else I'd tell someone setting this up

• Ask for the as-of time. The consensus was almost five days old; option quotes carry a timestamp to the second; FINRA short interest comes out about a week and a half after its settlement date.
• Check the arithmetic once by hand. 44.2 + 61.9 = 106.1, and 230 - 106.1 = 123.9. After that, let the assistant do it.
• Combine the prompts once each one works: "Build me an earnings prep sheet for SoundHound's Q3 2026 report: the date and call time, the consensus with its date, the 2026 guidance and what it leaves for the second half, anything filed since that changes it, a summary of last quarter's call, the options-implied move for the first expiry after the report, and the latest short interest. Cite the source and date of every number."

The full walkthrough, with every answer, how to check each one and the setup steps for ChatGPT and Claude, is here:

https://equibles.com/blog/how-to-research-a-stock-before-earnings-with-chatgpt-or-claude

What do you check before a company reports that isn't on this list?

Data: SEC filings, FINRA short interest, company investor relations pages and option quotes, processed by Equibles.