Qualitative Valuation

Brings Morningstar moat framework and Porter's Five Forces into your valuation workflow. Trigger it when you need to assess whether a company has durable competitive advantages beyond the spreadsheet. It covers the five moat sources (network effects, switching costs, intangible assets, cost advantages, efficient scale), management quality evaluation through capital allocation track record, and ESG integration approaches. The worked examples walk through moat assessment for enterprise software and industry analysis for retail. Honestly, this is most valuable when you're trying to justify a premium multiple or explain why a company with modest financials might compound for decades. The red flags section on aggressive accounting and divergent cash flows is worth the price of admission alone.

skills.sh installs: 709
GitHub stars: 224
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

View on GitHub

Install

$ npx -y skills add joellewis/finance_skills --skill qualitative-valuation --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

Qualitative Valuation

Core Concepts

Economic Moats (Morningstar Framework)

An economic moat is a structural advantage that protects a company's profits from competition. Five sources:

Network Effects: the product becomes more valuable as more people use it (payment networks, marketplaces)
Switching Costs: customers face significant cost, effort, or risk in moving to a competitor (enterprise software, banking relationships)
Intangible Assets: brands, patents, licenses, or regulatory approvals competitors cannot replicate; brands must confer pricing power to qualify
Cost Advantages: structural cost advantages from process technology, scale, location, or unique resources
Efficient Scale: a market that supports only a few players, where new entry would drive returns below the cost of capital (utilities, pipelines, railroads)

Moat Width

Wide moat (20+ years): multiple reinforcing moat sources, each backed by hard evidence
Narrow moat (10+ years): at least one evidenced moat source with moderate durability
No moat: commodity business with no structural advantage; competes on price

SKILL.md on GitHub