How ratings work
The framework behind every Wide / Narrow / Thin verdict and moat scorecard
A “moat” is a durable structural advantage that lets a company keep earning high returns while competitors try, and fail, to take them away. Every company here gets one headline rating for how wide that moat is — and a six-part scorecard showing how that verdict was reached.
The three ratings
A strong, structural advantage that is very hard to attack — a genuine monopoly or duopoly, an irreplaceable brand, an entrenched ecosystem, or a network effect. Competitors are unlikely to erode it within a decade, even trying hard.
A real advantage that clearly exists but must be continually re-earned — leadership that beats rivals on execution rather than on an unbridgeable barrier, or a strong position in a contested or cyclical market. Durable, but not unassailable.
Little or no durable protection — a commodity price-taker, or a young, levered, or unproven position whose advantage could disappear within a few years. Often a good business without a lasting one.
Threat pages carry the mirror scale — High / Moderate / Low — for how serious a given danger to the moat is.
What we look for
A moat has to come from somewhere. We assess each company against the classic sources of durable advantage:
- Switching costs. the cost, risk, or hassle of leaving
- Network effects. each user makes it more valuable to the next
- Brand & intangibles. pricing power from reputation or desirability
- Economies of scale. a cost or reach advantage rivals can’t match
- Cost advantage. structurally cheaper production or distribution
- Regulation & licenses. legal barriers that keep entrants out
- Intellectual property. patents, process know-how, trade secrets
- Efficient scale. a market only big enough for the incumbents
The moat scorecard
To make the verdict transparent and comparable across companies, each root page carries a scorecard. Five component dimensions roll up into an overall-durability score, all rated 0–10 where higher means a stronger moat:
- Switching costs. how costly it is for a customer to leave
- Network effects. whether each user makes the product more valuable to the next
- Pricing power. the ability to raise price without losing the customer
- Hard to replicate. how hard the advantage is for a well-funded rival to copy (the inverse of “replicability”)
- Disruption resistance. resilience to technological or competitive disruption (the inverse of “disruption risk”)
- Overall durability. the synthesis — anchored to the headline rating (Wide 8–9, Narrow 5–7, Thin 3–4)
How financial strength & valuation fit in
They don’t change the moat score. A moat measures the durability of competitive advantage, not whether the stock is cheap or the balance sheet strong. A wide-moat company can be a poor investment at a rich price, and a thin-moat one a bargain — so valuation is kept separate, in the interactive P/E, P/S, revenue and ROIC charts and the “number that tests this moat” callouts, never blended into the rating.
Financial strength matters only indirectly: a fortress balance sheet can help a company defend its moat through a downturn, and heavy debt can force a retreat — but cash alone is not a moat, and we score the advantage, not the bank account.
Who writes them, and how often
These are editorial, framework-driven assessments authored with AI assistance — a consistent moat framework applied company by company and cross-checked against each company’s public filings and most recent results. They are judgments, not the output of a mechanical formula, and reasonable analysts will disagree on individual scores.
Each assessment is reviewed against the company’s latest earnings and any material news; every article shows the “Generated” date at its foot so you can see how current it is. Market-sensitive figures (price, market cap, multiples) are refreshed at each review.
This is an educational tool for thinking about competitive advantage — not investment advice, a recommendation, or a price target. Do your own research.