Wide-Moat Stocks Trading Below Fair Value (2026)

The most attractive setup in investing is simple to describe and hard to find: an exceptional business trading for less than it's worth. A great company at a rich price can still be a poor investment, and a cheap stock with no durable advantage is often cheap for a reason. The intersection — high quality and a reasonable price — is where long-term returns tend to come from.

That intersection is exactly what the MoatScope Quality × Valuation grid is built to surface. This article walks through how to think about wide-moat stocks trading below fair value, and looks at several large, well-known companies that sit in that quadrant today.

What "wide moat" and "below fair value" actually mean

A wide economic moat is a durable competitive advantage that protects a company's returns on capital from competitors for a long time — think entrenched switching costs, network effects, hard-to-replicate intangible assets, structural cost advantages, or efficient scale. Wide-moat businesses are the rarest and most valuable kind; most companies have a narrow moat or none at all. For the full framework, see our guide to what an economic moat is and how to find wide-moat stocks.

"Below fair value" means the current market price sits beneath our estimate of what the business is intrinsically worth. MoatScope estimates fair value from owner earnings — roughly, the cash a business generates for its owners after the spending required to maintain it — adjusted for cash and debt. We express the result as a price-to-fair-value (P/FV) ratio: below 1.0× suggests a discount, above 1.0× a premium. For the mechanics, see how to calculate fair value of a stock and what intrinsic value is.

Combining the two filters — wide moat and P/FV below 1.0× — is demanding. Quality and cheapness rarely travel together, because the market usually pays up for durable advantages. When they do coincide, it's often because a high-quality business is temporarily out of favor.

Wide-moat names trading at a discount today

Here are several wide-moat companies that currently screen below our fair value estimate, ordered roughly from highest to lowest quality score. Each links to its full, live analysis.

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) — quality 82, ~27% below fair value

Johnson & Johnson carries one of the strongest quality scores among large-cap wide-moat names at 82/100, and trades around 0.73× our fair value estimate — roughly a 27% discount. Its moat is anchored in intangible assets (brands and patents), switching costs, and cost advantages across its pharmaceutical and medtech franchises. The management verdict is favorable. Healthcare's defensive characteristics and J&J's diversification make it a frequent anchor holding for quality-focused investors.

Nike (NKE) — quality 71, ~31% below fair value

Nike screens at 71/100 quality and around 0.69× fair value. Its moat rests on one of the most valuable brands in consumer products (an intangible asset), reinforced by network effects and scale-driven cost advantages. The discount reflects a period of softer growth and inventory normalization; the moat question is whether the brand's pricing power endures. Note that our management evaluation flags insufficient tenure, reflecting a recent leadership change worth monitoring.

Salesforce (CRM) — quality 69, ~38% below fair value

Salesforce sits at 69/100 quality and roughly 0.62× fair value — one of the steeper discounts on this list. The moat is classic enterprise software: high switching costs (ripping out a CRM is painful), network effects across its ecosystem, and intangible assets in its platform and data. For software businesses, the durability of switching costs is the central moat question.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) — quality 61, ~42% below fair value

JPMorgan shows the largest discount among these names at around 0.58× fair value, with a 61/100 quality score. Its advantages come from scale-driven cost advantages, switching costs in banking relationships, and network effects in payments and markets. Banks are cyclical and their fair value estimates are sensitive to rate and credit assumptions, so the wide range around the base estimate matters here — worth reading the full analysis before drawing conclusions.

Other wide-moat names screening below fair value in the same snapshot include Procter & Gamble, Amgen, Home Depot, and Walt Disney. Each tells a different story about why a durable business might be temporarily cheap.

How to use a screen like this

A screen is a starting point, not a buy list. A few principles worth keeping in mind:

First, a discount to fair value is only as good as the fair value estimate behind it. Our estimates rest on owner-earnings assumptions; the wider the range between the conservative and optimistic scenarios, the more uncertainty there is. Cyclical businesses (banks, commodity-linked names) carry wider ranges than stable compounders.

Second, quality and valuation are separate questions. A high quality score tells you the business is fundamentally strong; it says nothing about whether the price is attractive. That's the entire point of plotting them on two separate axes — see what a quality score is for how the seven pillars combine.

Third, ask why it's cheap. A wide-moat business trading at a discount is usually facing a real or perceived problem — slowing growth, a regulatory cloud, a cyclical downturn, or a leadership transition. The investment question is whether that problem is temporary and the moat intact, or whether the moat itself is eroding.

The bottom line

Wide-moat stocks trading below fair value are rare because the combination is genuinely hard to find — the market usually prices durable advantages at a premium. When the combination appears, it tends to reflect temporary pessimism about an otherwise strong business. The discipline is in separating the businesses whose problems are passing from those whose moats are genuinely shrinking. Quality tells you which businesses are worth owning; valuation tells you when. The companies above are where, in a recent snapshot, both questions point in the same direction.