A few days ago I was running a workshop on how I use claude for investing.
I was explaining how AI transformed the first step of my process:
The Overview phase.
This is where I try to understand the basics of a company and its industry before going deeper.
I needed an example…
But using a stock I already knew would be dishonest.
Then I remembered Martin Marietta.
I had recently seen on X that Chris Hohn bought the stock.
One participant said:
I know this business.
I knew nothing about the company.
I said: great exemple !
So I opened Claude and showed them exactly what I would do starting from zero.
I continued the research after the workshop.
And within a couple of hours, I went from:
"I have no idea how this business works."
to:
"Okay. I get the business model"
Here’s exactly how I did it with Martin Marietta :
The 2 steps to understand a new stock:
When I know nothing about a stock, I call 2 friends:
Friend #1 teaches me the industry:
How the industry works
what drives the economics
and translates the weird terms into plain English.
Friend #2 explains the company:
He reads the filings and gives me a short, clear explanation of:
How it makes money
Who its customers are
What really drives the business
That’s what I will do with Claude!
But I don’t have to pay a salary.
And no one’s wife is asking:
“Who is Marietta, and why have you been talking about her for 2 hours?”
Step 1: Understand the industry
If I already know the industry, I skip this step.
But with Martin Marietta, I knew nothing about it…
So I opened Claude and I fired this question with my special skill Learn Any Industry:
Reminder: A Skill turns Claude into a repeatable workflow.
I build the instructions once, then get the same type of output every time without rewriting the prompts.
A few minutes later, I had everything I needed to understand the industry:
Claude gave me 3 parts:
1. The Industry language
For every important industry term, Claude explained:
What it means
Why it matters for investors
I woud be honest…
Before AI, this would have taken me hours.
And I still wouldn’t have ended up with something this clear.
But that’s only the first part.
2. The economics of the industry
The seconde part is a one page summary of what actually moves the industry:
The top 3 demand drivers
The top 3 supply drivers
At this point I got the industry language and the main drivers…
Now I was ready to go deeper.
3. The full industry report
Claude gave me a 6000 word report explaining the industry in detail.
For Martin Marietta’s industry, one of the most useful sections was the boom and bust analysis.
It showed me what happened during the 2006–2011 US construction crash, the Spanish bust, China’s cement decline, and the recent price-led cycle.
Why does this work?
You have every right to ask me:
Okay Mostapha, but why does this create something useful instead of a generic ChatGPT-style summary?
It’s not magic.
It comes from the way the Skill is structured.
I taught Claude exactly what an investor needs to understand about an industry.
Things like:
What drives demand
What limits supply
How pricing works
What drives margins
How the industry behaved in past cycles
That changes the output completely.
and after bulding it ,I tested this Skill across 10+ industries to validate it.
You can download the Learn Any Industry Skill from the Skill Library here: