Articles
Guides and analysis on economic moats, competitive advantage, valuation, and how AI is reshaping durable businesses.
Wide Moat vs Narrow Moat: What Actually Separates Them
Wide and narrow moat ratings measure durability, not strength — how long excess returns should last, what earns each label, and why the line matters.
Visa vs Mastercard: Two Network-Effect Moats Compared
Visa and Mastercard run near-identical network moats. Where they actually diverge: revenue mix, cross-border exposure, and regulatory risk.
DCF Valuation Explained: How to Value a Stock Without a Math Degree
A plain-English guide to discounted cash flow — what growth, WACC, and terminal value mean, and how MoatScan AI's own DCF engine actually works.
The $700 Billion AI Capex Arms Race: Moat Builder or Entry Fee?
Big Tech will spend roughly $700 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026. Capital-cycle history says arms races destroy returns — when does capex build a moat?
Palantir Q2 2026 Earnings: A Record Quarter That Doesn't Move the Moat
Palantir grew revenue 93% and posted a 155% Rule of 40 — and still reads 60/100 Narrow Moat. What the quarter proved, and where our own DCF is arguable.
Amazon Q2 2026 Earnings: Why AMZN Jumped 15% and What the EPS Beat Hid
Amazon's Q2 EPS beat was mostly a $53.4B Anthropic markup. What really moved AMZN 15% — AWS, backlog, capex — and why the moat still reads Narrow.
Microsoft FY2026 Q4 Earnings: Azure Tops $100 Billion — What It Means for the Moat
Microsoft closed FY2026 with $90B in Q4 revenue and Azure past $100B a year. What the results mean for MSFT's moat, free cash flow, and fair value.
Alphabet's Economic Moat: Does Google Survive AI Search?
A five-pillar audit of Alphabet's moat — the search-and-YouTube network flywheel, the antitrust remedies, and whether AI answers erode the core.
Apple's Economic Moat: A Five-Pillar Breakdown
Where Apple's moat actually comes from — a five-pillar look at its switching costs, brand, and scale, plus the regulatory and AI cracks worth watching.
ROIC: The Number That Proves a Moat Exists
What return on invested capital measures, why a sustained ROIC above the cost of capital is the financial fingerprint of a moat, and where it breaks.
How AI Is Reshaping Economic Moats
Which competitive moats AI strengthens, which it erodes, and how to score a company's AI opportunity and threat — a framework with examples.
Morningstar Moat Ratings vs. MoatScan: What's Different?
How MoatScan's AI-generated moat analysis compares to Morningstar's analyst-driven Economic Moat Rating — methodology, coverage, scoring, and price.
How to Identify Economic Moats: A Practical Checklist
A step-by-step process for spotting durable competitive advantages — the financial evidence, the qualitative tests, and the false moats that fool investors.
Efficient Scale: The Moat of Markets Too Small to Fight Over
How natural monopolies and niche dominators are protected by their market's own economics — the least intuitive moat pillar, explained with examples.
Cost Advantages: The Moat of Being Structurally Cheaper
How scale, process, and unique assets let some companies produce at costs competitors can't match — and how to tell structural cost advantages from temporary ones.
Intangible Assets: Moats Built on Brands, Patents, and Licenses
How brands with pricing power, patent portfolios, and regulatory licenses create economic moats — and how to tell valuable intangibles from famous ones.
Switching Costs: The Quiet Moat That Keeps Customers for Decades
How switching costs lock in customers and create pricing power, the three types investors should know, and the metrics that reveal real lock-in.
What Is an Economic Moat? A Practical Guide for Investors
What an economic moat is, the five sources of durable competitive advantage, and how to tell a real moat from a temporary edge — with examples.
Network Effects: The Most Powerful Moat in Modern Markets
How network effects create winner-take-most businesses, the four main types, how to tell real network effects from fake ones, and where they break.
The Widest Moats of 2026: What We Found Analyzing 590+ Stocks
We ran 590+ US-listed companies through a five-pillar AI moat analysis. Here are the highest-scoring wide moat stocks of 2026 — and the patterns behind them.