Research on moats, business quality, and what a company is worth.

MoatScope publishes daily research on durable competitive advantages — 500+ articles grounded in SEC filings, backed by a database of moat ratings and quality scores for 5,800+ US-listed companies, more than 3,000 of them with a fair value estimate.

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Latest research

New articles most weekdays: moat analysis, valuation frameworks, accounting deep-dives, and what current SEC filings reveal about business quality.

Strategy

Earnings Recessions vs. Economic Recessions: How They Differ

An earnings recession and an economic recession often overlap, but not always. How to tell them apart, and what past cycles say each one means for stocks.

Oct 19, 2026 · 9 min read

Strategy

Sizing Sector Exposure in a Dividend Portfolio

A dividend portfolio can hold twenty stocks and still be one bet on interest rates. Here's how to cap sectors by income share, not by holding count.

Oct 16, 2026 · 8 min read

Strategy

Why Waiting for Macro Clarity Carries Its Own Risk

Holding cash until the macro picture clears feels cautious but is a bet with its own cost. A framework for telling waiting cash from working cash.

Oct 13, 2026 · 8 min read

Strategy

Payment Networks: Toll-Booth Economics Without Credit Risk

Visa and Mastercard route payments and keep a fee; card issuers fund the loans and absorb the losses. Here is how that split shapes returns across the sector.

Oct 9, 2026 · 9 min read

Education

Reading Preferred Stock Terms Like a Fixed-Income Analyst

Preferred stock behaves like a bond covenant package. Learn the five terms in the certificate of designations that decide how safe the yield really is.

Oct 8, 2026 · 8 min read

Education

Currency Hedge Accounting: Earnings That Won't Repeat

How to read the derivatives footnote in a 10-K to separate hedge-driven earnings from operating results, and why a currency tailwind in net income rarely lasts.

Oct 7, 2026 · 8 min read

Education

How to Model a Fade Period as Returns Normalize

Most DCFs drop returns off a cliff after year five. Learn how to model a fade period so growth and return on capital normalize gradually instead.

Oct 6, 2026 · 8 min read

Education

How to Read a Going-Private Deal's Valuation Disclosure

Schedule 13E-3 makes insiders show their valuation math. Learn to read the discount rate, terminal multiple and projections, with Walgreens as the example.

Oct 5, 2026 · 8 min read

Education

Reading Retention Disclosures for Hidden Customer Lock-In

Net revenue retention looks like proof of lock-in, but often it isn't. A framework for reading retention disclosures to separate switching costs from habit.

Oct 4, 2026 · 9 min read

Strategy

Credit Facility Amendments as a Lending-Standards Gauge

Credit facility amendments in 8-K filings often move before the Fed's loan officer survey does. Here is how to read them as a live gauge of lending standards.

Oct 2, 2026 · 8 min read

Strategy

Return of Capital: How It Distorts Your Real Yield

Return of capital can make a payout look sturdier or shakier than it is. Learn to tell harmless REIT ROC from distributions that hand back your principal.

Oct 1, 2026 · 8 min read

Strategy

How to Set Sector Limits Without Making a Sector Call

A mechanical sector-weight ceiling caps concentration risk without requiring a view on which sector wins next — how to set one, and when to override it.

Sep 25, 2026 · 8 min read

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Highest-quality wide-moat stocks right now

A live sample from the MoatScope database — the ten highest quality scores among companies we currently rate as wide-moat. Updated daily as filings and prices come in.

Ticker	Company	Sector	Moat	Quality
META	Meta Platforms, Inc.	Communication Services	Wide	90
TSM	TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING CO LTD	Information Technology	Wide	90
GOOGL	Alphabet Inc.	Communication Services	Wide	89
IBKR	Interactive Brokers Group, Inc.	Financials	Wide	89
ASMLF	ASML HOLDING NV	Information Technology	Wide	86
MSFT	MICROSOFT CORP	Information Technology	Wide	86
AMAT	APPLIED MATERIALS INC /DE	Information Technology	Wide	85
RACE	Ferrari N.V.	Consumer Discretionary	Wide	85
LRCX	LAM RESEARCH CORP	Information Technology	Wide	84
KLAC	KLA CORP	Information Technology	Wide	84

Quality scores and moat ratings are MoatScope research opinions, not investment advice. Click any ticker for the full analysis.

Quality first, price second

Every piece of MoatScope research starts one step before price, with the question that matters most over a decade: is this a business worth owning at all? We rate the durability of each company’s competitive advantage as Wide, Narrow, or None — judged on switching costs, network effects, intangible assets, cost advantages, and efficient scale — and score business quality from 0 to 100 across seven pillars, from profitability and balance-sheet strength to capital allocation and earnings consistency.

Valuation comes last, deliberately: a three-tier fair value range anchored to owner earnings, the cash a business actually generates after the capital spending needed to keep it running. Every number traces to a primary source — fundamentals from SEC EDGAR filings, prices from exchange data — and every rating is re-examined as new filings arrive. The methodology guide documents the full framework.

The database behind the research

Every article draws on the same dataset: moat ratings and quality scores for 5,800+ US-listed stocks, and fair value estimates for more than 3,000 of them. The interactive screener is free for the Dow 30.

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