I first spotted US Bancorp (USB) when reviewing Berkshire Hathaway’s stock holdings back in February. This past week I read about US Bancorp again when a member of Value Investing News posted a link to “The Complete User’s Guide to Warren Buffett’s Portfolio” by James Altucher. I have been meaning to analyze US Bancorp for [...]
Pfizer (PFE) is a world class pharmaceutical company that develops and manufactures leading prescription medicines. This $181 billion dollar company has many competitive advantages that give it a wide moat, which shields it from the pressures of profit eroding competition.
Western Union (WU) has been added to the Fat Pitch Financial Portfolio. This paper port, which is similar to my actual holdings, is tracked at Marketocracy. I added 2,290 shares of Western Union this morning for an average price of $21.86.
There is nothing too complicated about my decision to purchase a stake in Western Union. I have been tracking [...]
Last week I cranked out a series of posts listing potential wide moat stocks I discovered using a screen based on Phil Town’s Big 5 Numbers. I figured this week I would start working my way through this list. My guess is that many of you are already starting to do the same.
For those of [...]
USG Corporation (USG) threw a nice slow, almost perfect pitch right over my plate this week. I have been watching and studying this stock for the past two weeks. With Warren Buffett acting as my virtual coach, I knew it was time to swing when I heard that he added more shares of USG to his Berkshire Hathaway holdings. [...]
Eric Savitz, author of Barron’s Tech Trader Daily, reports on the various analyst reviews following Microsoft’s Analyst Day. The main news from the meeting involved the introduction of Zune, Microsoft’s iPod challenger. It was also reported that there could be further delays with Windows Vista to ensure that the product is ready.
In terms of what the [...]
A few weeks ago Morningstar’s Jim Callahan asked whether banks have moats. He felt that banks have high relative switching costs and cost advantages.
Gannon On Investing presented a different take on bank moats. Geoff Gannon did not really see high switching costs establishing moats around banks. He instead thought that bank transactions had similar characteristics [...]
The Magic Formula Investing (MFI) website screen produces a list of stocks that have a combination of high earnings yield and high returns on capital. However, I’ve noticed that many of the stocks ranked by the MFI screen do not seem to have wide moats (i.e., sustainable competitive advantages). Ideally, I’d love to [...]
Gannon On Investing recently held a contest to find the widest moat company. I submited an entry for Microsoft (MSFT). I was excited to find out today that my entry won! I figured that someone else would find an even better wide moat company, but to my disappointment no one did.
Disappointment you ask? Well, I [...]
Update: This week reports for 10 companies with both dividend yield and dividend growth are available for free at Morningstar.
Originally posted on January 7, 2006.
As I started working my way through Barron’s today, I notice an ad by Morningstar. They are offering 15 free research reports on wide moat stocks that currently have their 5-star rating. No [...]

