skills/catalyst-calendar/references/pm-action-playbook.md

# PM Action Playbook

## The PM questions every catalyst calendar must answer
1. What could change because of this event?
2. What does the market appear to expect?
3. What is our variant view or exposure to surprise?
4. What work must be completed before the event?
5. What would confirm, weaken, or break the thesis?
6. Is this event worth changing position size, hedge, or research priority?
7. What do we do immediately after the event prints?

## Convert rows into action
For each high-priority event, produce:
- **Setup:** Current investor debate and why timing matters.
- **Key metrics:** The numbers, KPIs, or milestones that will matter.
- **Expectation frame:** Guidance, consensus, buy-side bogey, implied move, prior company commentary, or internal model.
- **Variant view:** Where the user's view differs from market or where uncertainty is underpriced.
- **Confirm/disconfirm signals:** Concrete thresholds or qualitative outcomes.
- **Prep plan:** Model refresh, question list, management call, expert call, data scrape, channel check, sensitivity, hedge review.
- **Post-event playbook:** Update model, thesis tracker, risk sizing, memo, deck, or alert list.

## Ranking events for PM attention
Prioritize events that combine:
- High impact and high controversy.
- High position size or exposure contribution.
- Low confidence but high potential impact.
- Same-day clustering across correlated positions.
- Catalysts that can change forward estimates, terminal narrative, balance sheet risk, regulatory path, or liquidity.
- Events near option expiries, lockups, financing windows, or deal deadlines.

## Public-equity nuance by strategy
### Long-only
Focus on thesis durability, quality of compounding, revision risk, downside protection, and whether events create entry/exit opportunities without overtrading.

### Long/short equity
Focus on crowded expectations, asymmetric setups, pair read-throughs, factor exposures, short squeeze risk, borrow/technical events, and whether catalysts are idiosyncratic enough to underwrite.

### Event-driven
Focus on path dependency, legal/regulatory milestones, deal-spread math, timing slippage, break risk, downside on break, borrow/financing mechanics, and hard vs soft deadlines.

### Equity research
Focus on pre-event setup, consensus sensitivity, key questions for management, likely investor debate, and what note/report must be published before and after the event.

### Mutual fund / diversified PM
Focus on portfolio-level clustering, benchmark-relative risk, sector drawdowns, liquidity, and whether the event can impair long-term thesis.

## Signals that deserve escalation
- A high-impact event has no source confidence or only stale evidence.
- Report dates are unconfirmed but treated as hard dates in the user's tracker.
- Trial/regulatory dates are mixed up between filing, acceptance, advisory committee, approval, and commercial launch.
- Lockup/secondary/share issuance events are omitted for a recent IPO or de-SPAC.
- M&A timeline omits key regulatory or shareholder dates.
- Macro events cluster with high-beta or rate-sensitive positions.
- Event has high downside but no prep action or hedge/risk review.
- A thesis-critical catalyst slipped without explanation.

## PM-quality language
Use crisp, decision-oriented phrasing:
- "This is a thesis checkpoint, not just a calendar item."
- "The date is confirmed, but the market impact depends on whether management updates FY guidance."
- "The key risk is not the print itself; it is whether the company resets the medium-term margin algorithm."
- "Treat this as a window until primary-source confirmation; do not schedule position decisions around a soft date."
- "Prep priority is high because the event could force an estimate change and position-size decision within 24 hours."