How our numbers are made

A weighted blend of profitability (return on equity, margins), balance-sheet strength (debt to equity), growth (revenue trend), valuation (earnings multiple against the market and the company's own history) and analyst context where real coverage exists. Weights are fixed across the universe, so scores compare fairly between companies; nothing is hand-adjusted per stock.

Limitation: a formula cannot read a news cycle. A company mid-scandal can score well on trailing numbers. The rating is a filter, not a verdict.

An estimate of competitive protection built from persistence of high returns on capital, gross margin stability, market position within the sector, and scale. Companies that have defended high returns for years score high; companies whose economics swing with the cycle score low.

Limitation: moats erode faster than trailing data shows. Kodak had a wonderful decade of numbers right up until it did not.

A Graham-style earnings-power model: normalized earnings, a growth assumption capped to protect against fantasy, and a discount for balance-sheet risk. It is deliberately NOT a full discounted cash flow with a terminal value, because small changes to a terminal assumption can justify any price, and a number that can justify anything means nothing. The result is held within a band of the current price.

Every assumption is exposed in the Valuation Lab on each stock page: drag them and watch the number move. If our default assumptions look wrong for a company, yours are one slider away.

Limitation: earnings-power models undervalue young companies whose value is mostly future growth. That is a bias we accept, stated openly, rather than a bug.

The share of a company's model inputs that were actually available from filings and market data, 0 to 100. A low score means the rating, moat and fair value stand on fewer legs; the interface says so next to the numbers rather than pretending confidence.

Prices and fundamentals come from public market data providers and are cached briefly on our servers so every reader shares the same fresh quote. 13F holdings, insider filings and congressional trade disclosures come from the official filings themselves, ingested on a schedule; a 13F shows a fund's position up to 45 days after quarter end, and we display filing dates so the lag is never hidden.

No price targets dressed as certainty. No hiding assumptions inside a black box. No pretending a missing number is a zero. And no advice: the product computes, explains and links to sources; the decision is yours.