Moat Score
The Moat Score is this site’s 0–100 reading of how durable a business looks — an attempt to put a number on the economic moat idea using nothing but the company’s own SEC filings. A score you can’t inspect is a horoscope, so every formula, weight, and assumption behind it is published in the methodology.
Just as important is what it isn’t. It’s not a stock rating: the score is blind to price, and a wonderful business can be a terrible buy at the wrong price. It moves only when a company files new numbers — never with the daily market. And where filings don’t support a score, there isn’t one: see the coverage gate.
How the Moat Index measures this
Methodology moat-index@2.0.0 blends five equally weighted sub-scores: Business Trend from revenue and diluted-EPS direction; Pricing Power from gross-margin level and stability; Returns on Capital from ROIC against a 12% hurdle; Balance-Sheet Safety from max(net debt, 0) ÷ EBITDA and interest coverage; and Capital Discipline from owner-earnings growth and share-count behaviour. Scores map to moat tiers — Wide at 80 and above, Narrow from 60, Shallow from 40. Every reading is logged with its timestamp and methodology version in an append-only history, so the record stays auditable.