The Moat Index
Glossary
The words value investors use, defined the way this site actually uses them. Every entry says not just what a term means but how the Moat Index measures it across the 2,182 companies it currently scores — and, where our measurement differs from common usage, says so plainly.
- 13F filingThe quarterly SEC form on which large investment managers disclose their U.S.-listed equity holdings — the public record behind our Berkshire portfolio page.
- Append-only score historyEvery Moat Score reading is stored as a new timestamped row and never edited — corrections are new rows too. The history is the record, not a cache.
- Circle of competenceBuffett's rule to invest only where you genuinely understand the business — and to know exactly where the edge of your understanding is.
- Coverage gateThe Moat Index's refusal to guess: when a company's SEC filings don't provide the inputs a sub-score needs, it gets “insufficient data” instead of a number.
- Economic moatA durable competitive advantage that protects a company's profits from competitors, the way a moat protects a castle — the central idea the Moat Index measures from SEC filings.
- Financials outside the modelBanks, insurers, and real-estate businesses don't get Moat Scores: a margin-and-ROIC model doesn't fit a balance-sheet business, so the Index says “not scored” rather than publish a misleading number.
- Gross, operating & net marginThree cuts of profitability: what's left of revenue after production costs (gross), after running the business (operating), and after everything including interest and tax (net).
- Intrinsic valueWhat a business is actually worth — the value of the cash an owner could take out of it over its remaining life — as opposed to whatever the market quotes today.
- Margin of safetyThe gap between what you pay and what the business is conservatively worth — Benjamin Graham's cushion against your own analytical mistakes.
- Moat ScoreThis site's 0–100 rating of business durability, computed from primary SEC filings as a weighted blend of pricing power, returns on capital, balance-sheet safety, and capital discipline.
- Mr. MarketBenjamin Graham's allegory for the stock market: a moody business partner who quotes you a different price every day — and whose quotes are options, never orders.
- Owner earningsThe cash a business actually generates for its owners: net income plus depreciation and amortization, minus the capital spending needed just to keep the business running.
- ROIC (return on invested capital)After-tax operating profit divided by the capital tied up in the business — the single best measure of whether a company creates value with the money it employs.
- Wide, narrow & shallow moatsThe Moat Index's tier labels for moat durability — Wide (score 80–100), Narrow (60–79), Shallow (40–59), and no moat below 40. Exact score bands, not analyst judgments.