Wide-Moat Stocks On Sale – The August 2022 Heat Map

Step One: Wide-moat stocks with 5-star and 4-star ratings

Historical evidence says that while quality alone is a poor indicator of outperformance, when combined with a decent valuation filter, Morningstar’s moat rating proves to be more than useful. Based on the available data, stocks with a wide-moat rating that also fit into the 4- or 5-star category deserve to be the subject of further analysis. See the detailed explanation and the underlying evidence of our first step in this article.

We focus on those companies that are covered by a Morningstar analyst as assigning a wide-moat rating without thorough analysis is a questionable practice in our opinion. As of July 31, there were 184 wide-moat stocks meeting our criteria, unchanged from last month. Amphenol Corp. (APH) was upgraded to wide-moat classification, while Morningstar no longer provides analyst coverage for Check Point Software Technologies (CHKP).

Only 10.9% (20 stocks) of this wide-moat group earned a 5-star (most attractive) valuation rating. Here are they:

Company Name	Ticker
Comcast Corp Class A	CMCSA
Compass Minerals International	CMP
Equifax Inc	EFX
Etsy Inc	ETSY
Meta Platforms Inc	META
Guidewire Software Inc	GWRE
MercadoLibre Inc	MELI
Salesforce Inc	CRM
ServiceNow Inc	NOW
TransUnion	TRU
Yum China Holdings Inc	YUMC
Zimmer Biomet Holdings Inc	ZBH
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd	BABA
Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV	BUD
Core Laboratories NV	CLB
Imperial Brands PLC	OTCQX:IMBBY
JD.com Inc	JD
Roche Holding AG	OTCQX:RHHBY
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd	TSM
Tencent Holdings Ltd	OTCPK:TCEHY

We believe that the percentage of 5-star-rated wide-moat stocks is a good indicator of market sentiment. When this percentage is high, even the best companies are on sale. When the percentage is extremely low, market conditions may warrant caution. (Please note that this is not an indicator for market timing!)

As these best of breed companies may be worth a closer look even when they are just slightly cheaper than their fair value but are not in the bargain bin, we also list the 4-star-rated wide-moat stocks as of July 31:

Company Name	Ticker
3M Co	MMM
Adobe Inc	ADBE
Alphabet Inc A	GOOGL
Altria Group Inc	MO
Amazon.com Inc	AMZN
Applied Materials Inc	AMAT
Bank of America Corp	BAC
Bank of New York Mellon Corp	BK
Berkshire Hathaway Inc B	BRK.B
Biogen Inc	BIIB
Blackbaud Inc	BLKB
BlackRock Inc	BLK
Boeing Co	BA
Charles Schwab Corp	SCHW
Clorox Co	CLX
Ecolab Inc	ECL
Emerson Electric Co	EMR
Gilead Sciences Inc	GILD
Harley-Davidson Inc	HOG
Honeywell International Inc	HON
Intel Corp	INTC
Intercontinental Exchange Inc	ICE
International Flavors & Fragrances	IFF
Intuit Inc	INTU
JPMorgan Chase & Co	JPM
Lam Research Corp	LRCX
MarketAxess Holdings Inc	MKTX
Masco Corp	MAS
Microchip Technology Inc	MCHP
Microsoft Corp	MSFT
NIKE Inc B	NKE
Palo Alto Networks Inc	PANW
Polaris Inc	PII
Rockwell Automation Inc	ROK
Roper Technologies Inc	ROP
Starbucks Corp	SBUX
State Street Corporation	STT
T. Rowe Price Group Inc	TROW
Teradyne Inc	TER
The Walt Disney Co	DIS
The Western Union Co	WU
Tradeweb Markets Inc	TW
Tyler Technologies Inc	TYL
U.S. Bancorp	USB
Veeva Systems Inc Class A	VEEV
VeriSign Inc	VRSN
Wells Fargo & Co	WFC
Workday Inc Class A	WDAY
ABB Ltd	ABB
Airbus SE	OTCPK:EADSY
Allegion PLC	ALLE
Ambev SA	ABEV
ASML Holding NV	ASML
Baidu Inc	BIDU
Bayer AG	OTCPK:BAYRY
British American Tobacco PLC A	BTI
Experian PLC	OTCQX:EXPGY
Fanuc Corp	OTCPK:FANUY
GlaxoSmithKline PLC	GSK
James Hardie Industries PLC	JHX
Medtronic PLC	MDT
Novartis AG	NVS
Royal Bank of Canada	RY
Sanofi SA	SNY
The Toronto-Dominion Bank	TD

All in all, we have 85 firms that pass our very first criteria. (Down from 107 a month ago.)

Step Two: Historical Valuation in the EVA Framework

We believe that the most widely used valuation multiples are terribly flawed. See this article on why we consider the Future Growth Reliance metric the best-of-breed sentiment indicator that addresses accounting distortions, thus gives us a true picture of which wide-moat companies seem attractively valued in historical terms. We want to buy our top-quality targets when the baked-in expectations are low, since that is when surprising on the upside has the highest probability. As investment is a game of probabilities, all we can do is stack the odds in our favor as much as possible.

46 of the 85 stocks survived this second step. Here’s the list:

Company Name	Ticker
3M Co	MMM
Adobe Inc	ADBE
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd	BABA
Allegion PLC	ALLE
Alphabet Inc A	GOOGL
Amazon.com Inc	AMZN
Ambev SA	ABEV
Applied Materials Inc	AMAT
Bayer AG	OTCPK:BAYRY
Berkshire Hathaway Inc B	BRK.B
Blackbaud Inc	BLKB
BlackRock Inc	BLK
Comcast Corp Class A	CMCSA
Etsy Inc	ETSY
Experian PLC	OTCQX:EXPGY
Fanuc Corp	OTCPK:FANUY
Gilead Sciences Inc	GILD
Harley-Davidson Inc	HOG
Imperial Brands PLC	OTCQX:IMBBY
Intel Corp	INTC
Intercontinental Exchange Inc	ICE
Lam Research Corp	LRCX
MarketAxess Holdings Inc	MKTX
Masco Corp	MAS
MercadoLibre Inc	MELI
Meta Platforms Inc	META
Microchip Technology Inc	MCHP
Novartis AG	NVS
T. Rowe Price Group Inc	TROW
Roche Holding AG	OTCQX:RHHBY
Royal Bank of Canada	RY
Salesforce.com Inc	CRM
Sanofi SA	SNY
ServiceNow Inc	NOW
Starbucks Corp	SBUX
State Street Corporation	STT
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd	TSM
Tencent Holdings Ltd	OTCPK:TCEHY
Teradyne Inc	TER
The Toronto-Dominion Bank	TD
Tradeweb Markets Inc	TW
TransUnion	TRU
Veeva Systems Inc Class A	VEEV
VeriSign Inc	VRSN
The Western Union Co	WU
Workday Inc Class A	WDAY

We are rather strict when it comes to historical valuation. There are stocks that unquestionably fail both or short- and long-term tests. There are some targets, however, that may look attractively valued if you only focus on the short-term (like the last 5 years), but the longer you zoom out, the more you lose your appetite. It comes down to personal preference where you draw the line. For us, only those stocks are allowed to appear on the heat map in our third step that seem attractively valued in both a short-term and long-term context. (We go back as far as 20 years, calculate averages and medians on different time frames and let our algorithm do the ruthless work.)

Step Three: The Heat Map of the most investable wide-moat stocks

Seeing the stocks of our shortlist on a heat map with a quality and valuation axis is something that can prove very useful when we need to make a decision on which candidates to analyze thoroughly. As explained in our previous article, we use the PRVit (Performance-Risk-Valuation investment technology) model of the EVA Dimensions team.

All in all, PRVit is a multifactor quantitative stock selection model based on EVA-centric measures of Performance, Risk, and Valuation. It first estimates the fundamental value of a company based on its risk-adjusted EVA performance (shown on the vertical axis) and then compares it to its actual valuation (shown on the horizontal axis). All factors in this model were chosen heuristically based on common sense, and not by data mining, yet strong and statistically significant backtests prove the soundness of the PRVit approach both in the U.S. and globally. (See the details here.)

Here is the heat map as of July 31:

We also present the results in a table format to make your decision easier.

(Stocks highlighted in light blue are Morningstar’s 5-star-rated wide-moat names that survived the second step of our process.)

In PRVit, the factors are grouped into three categories: Performance, Risk, and Valuation. Each company has a composite 0-100 score in each category, where higher is better for Performance and lower is better for Risk and Valuation. We believe that stocks in the upper quintile of the PRVit ranking (with a PRVit score above 80) are worth a closer look.

We plan to run this three-step process on a monthly basis and publish the shortlist of targets it produces. If you don’t want to miss any of these pieces, please scroll up and click “Follow.”