Research Methodology

Each company on this site goes through the same nine-step process before we publish a call. The goal is to separate three questions that are usually blurred together: where a business stands today, whether that position will hold, and whether the stock is priced accordingly.

The pipeline

1. Framing — what industry the company is in, how it makes money, and whether it's really one business or several.
2. Strategic Business Units (SBUs) — splitting the company into the distinct competitive arenas it actually fights in, each with its own named rivals.
3. Market research — for each SBU, the market's own growth rate and the company's share of it — never the company's own revenue growth, which is a different number.
4. BCG Matrix — classifies each SBU as a Star (high growth, high share), Cash Cow (low growth, high share), Question Mark (high growth, low share), or Dog (low growth, low share).
5. Business Model Canvas — maps how each SBU actually works: customers, value proposition, resources, revenue model, and so on.
6. Coherence check — tests whether the canvas holds together internally and whether it actually matches the BCG label.
7. Job Audit — the sharpest tool in the pipeline. It asks whether the company is truly the customer's automatic, default choice for a recurring need — not just currently winning on price or features — and whether it actually gets paid every time that need recurs. See the glossary below.
8. Synthesis — combines all of the above into a portfolio-level narrative and specific, block-level recommendations.
9. Valuation — a sum-of-the-parts valuation: each SBU is priced separately using the multiple its BCG quadrant and Job Audit verdict imply, then added up and compared to the current stock price to produce a Buy / Hold / Avoid call with a stated conviction level.

A recurring finding worth being upfront about: the Job Audit frequently downgrades what the BCG Matrix alone would suggest. A "Star" that turns out to be dependent on a single boom, or "blocked" by an entrenched rival owning the customer's default choice, gets called out as such — even when the raw growth-and-share numbers look attractive.

Glossary

Star / Cash Cow / Question Mark / Dog

The four BCG quadrants: high/low market growth crossed with high/low relative market share.

Job Audit score bands (Fortress / Strong / Contested / No hold)

How completely a company owns a recurring customer need, scored out of 25 across five questions: does it own the moment, how often the moment happens, is it picked automatically, how hard is it for a rival to steal, and does the company get paid every time.

Job Audit verdicts (e.g. Real Star, Paper Star, Underpaid Star, Star on borrowed time, Live Bet, Blocked, Safe Cow, Dying Cow, Niche keeper, True Dog, One-Sale Business)

The BCG quadrant adjusted by the Job Audit score and by how durable the underlying customer need actually is — this adjusted verdict, not the raw quadrant, drives our recommendations.

Sum-of-the-Parts (SOTP)

Valuing each business line separately with its own appropriate multiple, then adding the pieces up — rather than applying one multiple to the whole company.

Conviction (High / Moderate / Low)

How much the valuation call depends on a judgment call or thin data, versus solidly-sourced figures. A large swing factor or a placeholder valuation caps conviction at Moderate or lower, regardless of how large the raw valuation gap looks.

What this is not

This is independent, automated-and-reviewed research for informational purposes only. It is not investment advice, and none of it should be treated as a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Market prices, share counts, and comparable-company multiples are dated at the time of publication and go stale within days — always check the "priced as of" date on a company's page, and treat every call as a starting point for your own research, not a conclusion.